


Advent

by Flora_Obsidian



Series: home is where your hearts are [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Gallifrey, Gallifrey Falls No More, Gen, Post-Time War, The Doctor Hates Politics, The Master Has Issues, Time War, Time War Angst, Worldbuilding, as well as, ergo there will be, he doesn't even show up for a while though so he doesn't need to worry about politics, he's doing his best though, more characters to be added later probably, more tags to be added later probably, romana is a badass politician, the master is also weirdly good with children once he figures his head out a bit, there are no graphic depictions of violence but this story will cover the, which is ironic considering how often he gets elected president, which isn't a tag but should be one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 65,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9662021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flora_Obsidian/pseuds/Flora_Obsidian
Summary: advent/ˈadˌvent/nounnoun: advent; plural noun: advents1. the arrival of a notable person, thing, or eventGallifrey has been dragged into safety, except anywhere and anything is safer than the Time War, and they aren't yet in the clear. The broken planet struggles to rebuild, still trapped and still alone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is a rewrite of an old story of mine -- technically, the first multi-chapter fic that I'd ever finished. It follows multiple POVs, all of which you'll find soon enough, but (no spoilers, don't worry) it's essentially the perspective from high Gallifreyan politics as they try to reorganize and rebuild, an outside perspective as the search for Gallifrey remains ongoing, and another inside perspective from the view of the survivors on the ground, not the politicians in the Citadel. They all tie together eventually, when everyone is in the same spot.
> 
> It gets dark in some places, considering that it deals with the aftermath of the Time War. Gallifrey looked a bit more like Mustafar than anything else, based off what we saw in The End of Time, so it's not an easy path. That being said, there's a happy ending, and I'll make sure to post warnings at the beginnings of each chapter for content I believe could be disturbing or triggering.
> 
> Current chapter count is eighteen, though that's subject to change. Rewrites of the first five chapters are completed, and parts of the sixth and seventh. I'm currently wrapping up things in high school and prepping for college, so I'm going to aim for updates once a week, every Saturday.
> 
> Anyway, here goes!
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: none.

Gallifrey had once been called the Shining World of the Seven Systems, and for very good reason. It had been something truly  _magnificent_ , the closest thing to what one might be able to call perfection, revered across all of time and in all the universe. The Time Lords themselves were an ancient race, noble and proud, knowledgeable and wise in a great many things. Their homeland was beautiful to see, their architecture melting seamlessly into the landscape instead of disrupting it. They harnessed the power of time and bent it to their will, but only so that they could protect it from others who would use the same power for works of evil.

And they heard of the Daleks, a fool's idea of genetic manipulation on a backwater planet, and they threw the Doctor onto Skaro, their seers foreseeing a time when the creatures would rise up in an army so great that there would be no hope of stopping their advance.

...Perhaps that was the first hint, when they would no longer get their hands dirty to protect even themselves.

And the Doctor hadn't been able to pull the trigger.

They gave their enemy the key to their downfall with the knowledge of time they so closely guarded. In sending the Doctor to the Daleks' genesis, they caused the species to carry an inbred hatred for all Time Lords, and a particularly strong hatred for the Doctor himself. It was the Doctor who fought the Daleks off time and again on a myriad of worlds, but Gallifrey's wayward child rarely turned his eyes to the planet he had once called home, and war brewed without his knowledge. By the time he came running back, it was far too late.

 _No more_.

They used all the weapons they had-- when those didn't work, they broke open the Omega Archives and delved into its forbidden arsenal of weaponry-- when those didn't work, they resurrected their soldiers after every single death and sent them back into battle, trying to change the outcome of whichever battle that had been lost-- and again when those soldiers died-- and again-- and again-- and  _again--_

Time was beyond hope of salvaging, ripped and knotted and writhing in agony. What was done then could never be undone, and no matter the outcome, a ragged scar would be left behind to cover the wound they had inflicted.

_No more._

They raised Rassilon  _himself_  in the hopes that their great leader from the legends would lead them safely into peace and glory once again, but their hopes were in vain, and their actions were to no avail. Their supposed savior was mad with bloodlust and war, and with the Glove and the Sash and the Key in his power, there were none who could disobey him, none who would even dare. He wished to  _save_ them by destroying all known matter and leaving them as simple consciousness in the endless void, and the High Council was willing to go through with it, cannibalizing the mind of Gallifrey's second wayward child, the Master, for their wretched salvation.

And after everything was said and done and the planet fell to pieces, one could only wonder  _how_?

What had become of them?

How could something so great have fallen so  _far_?

* * *

_"You'd have hope! And right now, that is_ **exactly** _what you don't have."_

The face of one of the three Doctors smiled at him-- an old smile, an inexplicably  _kind_ smile-- and the General took a breath. He hoped it was not so obviously shaky as it felt. The room was rumbling and creaking around them, the entire  _planet_ was rattling like a TARDIS during its first flight, and it was honestly a miracle that the ceiling hadn't caved in and killed them all.

It was a rather sturdy ceiling, he thought in some distant corner of his mind. They had exhausted all their options, but maybe with the extra time, they could do-- they could-- could do  _something_ \--

Something. What options had he left? He was in charge of Gallifrey's military, which had been consolidated into a single force surrounding the Citadel. There were not enough soldiers to attack the overwhelming forces of their enemy. Of the battle TARDISes which had flown at the start of the war, only a fraction of a percent were operational. They lacked the power to resurrect old forces. The Archives were emptied. The Lord President was insane. The shelters that hadn't burned were overflowing. The survivors who weren't fighting were starving. The survivors who were fighting never lived long enough to worry about food.

He could put their lives and all the lives remaining on Gallifrey into the hands of a madman, or he could resign them all to burn in eternal cosmic flames until the entire universe burned with them.

"It's delusional," he spat, but there was no real venom in his tone. He was just-- tired. Afraid, though he would never admit it. He led the troops, and he could not be seen to falter. If he remained calm, they would not die in panicked frenzy. "The calculations alone would take-- hundreds of years!"

 _"Oh, hundreds and hundreds!"_  the Doctor agreed brightly. How the hell was he so damn  _cheerful_ \--

 _"But don't worry."_  Another face waved away his concerns dismissively.  _"I started a_ **very** _long time ago."_

_"Calling the War Council of Gallifrey, this is the Doctor!"_

_"You might say--"_  and now the face was grinning like a fool,  _"--that I've been doing this all my lives!"_

Holograms began to spring to life around the room faster than he could keep track up until, surrounding the three faces of the Doctors that were already there, nine more faces had appeared, set with intense concentration. The elderly man that the General quite clearly remembered breaking into the repair rooms and stealing a faulty TARDIS capsule some several centuries back was puttering around the console of that very same TARDIS-- the one that the Council had forced to regenerate, and the following regeneration that had landed on Earth-- the one that couldn't bring himself to destroy those hellish, thrice-damned Dalek creatures-- the one who had traveled to the  _Tower of Rassilon_ with the previous four-- the one that they had put on trial against his future self, and heavens above, if that hadn't been a disaster-- and--

_"Good luck!"_

_"Ready!"_

_"Stand by!"_

_"Commencing calculations."_

_"Hang in there!"_

_"Across the boundaries that divide one universe from another..."_

_"I've just got to lock onto these coordinates..."_

_"And now for my next trick...!"_

The General slowly shook his head, unsure if he was dreaming-- or maybe he had died-- or maybe he had gone mad from the War like so many others had gone before him. His aide, Androgar, showed significantly less restraint and was gaping outright.

"I didn't know when I was well off," he said to himself, and Androgar turned to stare at him with wide eyes. The breach of formality was out of character, but really, what did it matter at this point? "All twelve of them!"

 _"No, sir!"_  The unfamiliar, authoritative voice had the General turning yet again to see where it was coming from. Yet another hologram sprang to life in an empty space between the others, all casting a faint light across the room and making the dust that fell from the shuddering ceiling swirl blue.  _"All thirteen!"_

The room shook again-- the floor lurched, and the General's feet went out from under him, sending him sprawling to the floor. Across the room, clinging to her computer panel to stay upright, the Commander called out. She wore a set of arched metal twisted into Gallifreyan on her shoulders, the same as all the rest of them did, but hers was crooked and warped, now, her face smeared with dirt. "Sir!" came her frantic voice. "The Daleks know that something is happening! They're increasing their firepower!"

The War Council had based themselves nearly a hundred miles underneath the surface to better protect themselves from bombardments. More dust crumbled down from the ceiling, the weight of a hundred miles of rock and debris bearing down. A large crack was forming overhead. The lights began to flicker on and off.

Perhaps the ceiling wasn't as stable as he had originally thought, that same distant part of his mind chimed in as he stood back up.

_You'd have hope!_

_And right now, that is exactly what you don't have._

What  _was_ hope? Had he ever even thought that there was a possibility of winning this war? Did they ever stand any chance against the Daleks, or was that just another delusion?

There were days when he struggled to remember a time  _before_.

"Do it, Doctor." It went against every fiber of the General's being to flee from battle. It went against every fiber of the General's being to put so many lives in the hands of the man who had intended to damn them all with the use of the Moment, just as it went against every fiber of his being to take orders from the man who intended to damn them all and the rest of the universe along with them. His voice was tired, flat.

What choice did they have? What options had he left?

They could no longer die fighting. If they died fleeing, perhaps they would be remembered as martyrs, and someone else could take up where they left off, wipe out the Daleks so that they could never continue their massacres.

"Just do it."

The Doctor looked at him with old eyes. The General squared his shoulders and stared back.

"Do it!"

 _"Okay."_  It was nearly whispered.  _"Gentlemen, we're ready."_

The General looked around, coughed as dust filtered into his face. His robes were charred, though he didn't remember any particular incident which would have caused them to burn. Then again, he could count three fires smoldering around the room; it had become rather commonplace. "Find something to hold on to," he announced. "I don't believe this is going to go smoothly."

Androgar, beside him, nodded shakily. "Yes, sir."

The Lords and Ladies in the room had been in shock for a while, now, minds numb to the point where they mechanically did their duties and little else. Androgar went about repeating the orders until they came back to themselves and listened. The War Council abandoned the last of their dignity and sank to the floor, clinging to whatever they could in the hopes that it would provide some modicum of stability.

_"Geronimo!"_

_"Allons-y!"_

_"Oh, for God's sake... Gallifrey stands!"_

Echoes of those whooping shouts, those triumphant, not-quite battle cries, flew around the room and swirled with the blue-tinted dust, and the shaking of the room got even worse, though the General hadn't thought it possible. He dropped to the ground and wrapped his arms tightly around a support strut for one of their consoles.

Overhead, he wondered if the Citadel was going to rattle out of his shattered dome and go snowballing down the mountain range and into the wastelands. The Daleks' raging fury spurred them on to ever-increasing firepower, and those that could peered up through the dust with watering eyes. The rotating hologram above the table full of discarded battle plans continued to glow even as the voices of the Doctors became garbled and slowly faded out into static and silence, one by one, until there was nothing at all.

_Gallifrey stands._

And it was utterly silent.

Mostly convinced that the floor wouldn't send anyone flying off their feet or that the ceiling wouldn't come caving in on them, the Technician got up and rushed to another console. It was sparking dangerously, smoke pouring out from the side, but all other panels in the room were in even worse condition. Tearing off a piece of their ruined robe and ignoring the serious breach of conduct that would have been in a different situation, they covered their hands so the screen wouldn't burn them and let out a slightly hysterical laugh once the results came up.

"We've-- moved," they gasped, sounding somewhere between laughter and tears. "The entire planet-- some sort of a pocket universe, sir, no suns, no moons, but gravity is-- is stable. There... there isn't anything here but us, sir-- scanners are damaged, but-- I don't-- the Daleks, sir-- there aren't any ships on the readings."

The General forced himself to remain steady as he got back up again, staring at the hologram above the table. He-- he didn't know  _what_ to feel. Relief? Joy? A hundred miles underneath the surface, the planet utterly alone-- but-- safe? Could they really be  _safe_?

Androgar sounded bewildered. "He did it. That man actually did it!"

_Gallifrey stands._

* * *

The screaming seemed to stop all at once.

Children slowly crawled out of empty pipes and from underneath heaps of scrap and rubble, their curiosity overriding their fear-- from around corners, from underneath rocky crevices in the remains of what used to be rows of beautiful spiraling towers-- and they stared upwards in confusion, squinting into dim light as the smoke in the sky began to drift away. It was hardly bright, but they were so used to smog and darkness that it might as well have been blinding. The dim glow seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, and it was enough to temporarily puzzle them all into silence.

An elderly woman let out a shuddering gasp and dropped to her knees, prostrating herself face down in the dirt as she began to sob. One might have thought she had been wounded, if she were the only one to react in such a manner; a soldier in combat armor and a jagged scar down the side of his face stumbled backwards in shock before bursting into tears; parents hugged their children close, staring, sobbing, but still it was quiet.

 _"Matierne?"_  A boy tugged at a woman's sleeve.  _"Matierne,_ what is it? What's the orange? Is it more fire?  _Matierne_ , why are you crying?"

But she was too stunned to answer.

"The sky!" A man's shout finally broke the stillness, voicing all of their thoughts in a few simple words. "Heavens above, I can see the sky!"

"The sky! I can see the sky!"

"The sky! The sky!"

As quickly as the silence had descended, it fled, a fleeting moment in endless amounts of time piled atop itself. The planet was once more filled with cries and shouts and screams, but this time, they were of joy.

* * *

Romanadvoratrelundar had been the Lady President of Gallifrey at the beginning of the War, but the people had called for a  _soldier_ to lead them-- it hadn't even been a large percentage of the people, but the High Council had gone behind her back all the same and resurrected Rassilon, who had promptly seized control as a dictator while stripping her of her position and instating her as Lady Chancellor instead. It was a high position, well-respected, something many strove to achieve, but it was purely diplomatic and meant for the finer points of politics.

There were no politics when it came to the Daleks. There were no negotiations, no surrenders.

It was too good of an offer to pass down without severe consequences. If she accepted, it would be a defeat, a humiliation; the position was worthless and most were fully aware-- to accept would be seen as passively submitting to another's decision, the mark of a weak leader-- the  _last_ thing she needed was more blame on top of the dark turn the War had taken shortly after she had stepped up to the Presidency. She hadn't been elected when the war had  _started_ , no, but the assassination of her predecessor had been just before things really started to go to hell.

And if she turned the offer down, she would be seen as petty, as someone who only wanted power and would do anything to keep it, someone who wanted her Presidency back and wouldn't stand for having anything less.

Rassilon forbid her from even going through the formalities of voting, something which they still did even though Rassilon's High Council would act as they pleased, vote or no. He kept her out of all things discussed in the Senate and the Council. A figurehead, a  _puppet_ , that was what she had been reduced to, and Rassilon was the one pulling the strings.

But though her actions were limited, her mind was not. Her nominal position gave her the liberty to act without notice. She spent her days and nights in the Citadel. She did whatever she could whenever she could-- aid, mostly, provided to the people whom Rassilon deemed unimportant. And when Arcadia had fallen, when all the cities had turned to rubble and ash and the Citadel was the last bastion of their survival, she survived and pressed on, doing what she had always done, what she did best.

A great tremor had shaken the halls of the Citadel not long ago. The tall windows that were still intact shattered, spewing glass shards the length of her hand out like knives. It was dangerous so close to the surface, but a good number of their underground passageways were unusable-- she had crawled into the nearest closet, thankful no one else was present to see her blind fumbling, and hid until the shaking had stopped and things seemed stable once again.

If that had been an attack, some new weapon the Daleks had procured...

What was taking the Doctor so long?

Glass crunching underfoot, she started for the transports that would take her deep into the crust of the planet, where their Councils were based-- she had to find the General, though he no doubt already knew of whatever had just happened--

\--and she found the General before she had even reached her destination, the man practically running down the broken halls to meet her. From what she had heard, he had been uptight through all of his incarnations, man or woman or otherwise, and this regeneration was military straight through to his bones. He never broke his stern composure--

\--was he  _smiling_?

"My Lady Chancellor!" he called out, a slightly hysterical edge to his voice. He stopped in front of her, clasped her hands in his. She noted with a frown that they were shaking. "Oh, my Lady Chancellor, he did it! That crazy fool did it!"

"Did  _what_?" she asked sharply. "General, could you explain in a manner that provides at least a little bit of context?"

Not only were his hands shaking, but his eyes were suspiciously bright, and his robes were starting to tatter at the hems. The thick metal shoulder pieces he wore had melted slightly. Had he finally gone mad? It wouldn't surprise her. She hadn't known many to stay in the War Council for long.

The General paused, cleared his throat, but still he smiled, and still he clutched her hands like a lifeline. "The Doctor stole the Moment. He intended to use it to-- to destroy Gallifrey, to destroy the Time Lords and Daleks alike."

Romana was fully aware of this. She had been the one who helped her old friend sneak into the Archives. She  _knew_ Rassilon was planning something on a scale of destruction beyond anything that had happened in the course of the War so far-- knew that there were people who would  _agree_ with such a course of action, looking for any possible end-- knew that the end, if the Doctor followed through, would be quicker and more efficient and almost entirely painless. And the Doctor would need to be on Gallifrey for the Moment to work, would need to set up a Time Lock in order to contain the explosion, so as the Galaxy Eater lived up to its name, he too would perish. She could never force him to life with the guilt his actions would cause.

Had he been captured? Was that the cause of joy here?

But-- the capture of a single man, one of their highest ranking soldiers before he had gone renegade yet again-- that didn't seem like cause enough for what she was seeing.

"I don't know what happened-- I don't fully understand what they did--"

The General was still going on and making very little sense. Romana dredged herself out of her thoughts to interrupt.

"They? I believe you said  _he_ the first time, in the singular form."

Gender was a fluid concept for a species that had no set biological structure, but her old friend rarely changed his pronouns.

"Yes!" The General actually laughed. "Him! The Doctor! Lady Chancellor,  _all thirteen_  of him-- with use of technology based off our stasis cubes-- I believe, we have been locked into a pocket universe and suspended out of time. With the absence of the planet, the Daleks in orbit destroyed one another-- we are alive, and they  _aren't_. We are alive, Lady Chancellor! Alive!"

The news, along with the uncharacteristic delivery, numbed her brain and brought all thoughts to a grinding halt. She swayed slightly on her feet, and the General gripped her arm to steady her.

"Alive," she repeated, sounding the word out. It was almost unfamiliar after so long of  _death_ and  _casualties_  and  _damage_ and  _retreat_. "Alive..."

"Alive," he agreed.

Slowly, she turned-- slowly, they walked to the nearest window, the General's hand still on her arm. The Citadel dome was only partially intact, the clear alloy it was comprised of, some several meters thick, shattered on one side and cracked throughout the rest. The buildings still smoked. Outside the Citadel itself, where there had once been a great and sprawling city, there was only wreckage, crashed battle TARDISes and Dalek ships alike. Beyond that, the blackened earth-- she remembered  _before_ , distantly, when the fields had been lush with red grass and the silver trees would look as though they were on fire when the suns-set hit them at just the right angle. Now, the whole planet burned. Beyond that, the mountains, their familiar shapes irrevocably changed from near-constant bombardment.

Beyond that...

"The sky!" the General declared giddily (or what passed as giddily for the General). "No Daleks. Less smoke. Very little light, but they couldn't bring our suns with us-- no Daleks-- the  _sky_ , Lady Chancellor... Do you know how long it's been since I have seen the sky?"

Most everything was still on fire. There was still smoke clogging the air, dust and debris and whatever was left as a result of chemical weapons deployed by both sides. But the smoke was dissipating ever so slowly-- beyond it, a darkened, burnt ocher sky-- and she understood the urge to laugh, to break composure and just  _laugh_ and cry and sink to the ground with a relief so great that words couldn't be put to describe it, because it was so very  _like_ him to do the impossible and pull it off without a problem. But she went very still a moment later, stiff and silent, ice water running through her veins. Glass cracked under her feet as she took an abrupt step back, and the General looked at her with concern.

"Rassilon must be informed," she said softly. "He has been planning-- a Solution." Just one conversation overheard, too little detail to be of use but enough for her to gather what was going to happened from what the words implied. "They must know we are safe before something drastic--"

The General shook his head. "We lost contact with the High Council several hours ago."

Romana stared at him.

"I have lost good soldiers because of orders given to me by Rassilon." His voice was cold, now-- a far, far cry from the excitement he had displayed just moments ago. "He is insane. As far as I am aware, as far as anybody on the War Council is aware, whatever plans Rassilon intended to put into motion during their last emergency session failed, and to that, I say good riddance."

The words were treason. Should anyone loyal to Rassilon overhear them, they would both be executed. Romana thought they were the most beautiful things she had heard since this damned War began.

"Then I must see which of them are alive, so that they can be dealt with properly."

Perhaps they had both gone mad. But the planet was safe, and Romana felt as though the puppet strings which had bound her were being cut away. She felt reckless. And with the planet safe-- with the threat of war suddenly and abruptly gone, the Council would be unstable at best-- an outcome that they could not possibly have foreseen--

"Rassilon has the Glove, the Key, and the Sash." The General met her gaze squarely. "If you are planning a coup, I think you may require military aid."

"Is it really a coup if you were the one usurped from power?"

"Nevertheless, if you do this now, at least allow me and some guards to accompany you."

"I would prefer you remain behind. If I die, there ought to be someone with sense in command left in the Citadel."

The noise he made could have been a laugh, but it sounded harsh. "Rassilon will know who sent guards with you, and I will die all the same. My Lady, I am no coward."

"No, you aren't."

She squared her shoulders, gave the window a final glance-- the sky, devoid of ships. The planet, quiet.

"I am honored to have your assistance, my Lord General."

"And I am honored to assist you, my Lady President."

* * *

The high levels were destroyed, nothing but rubble. The levels immediately beneath the surface had been allocated to the soldiers, the place where the majority of their defenses had been set up. There were more defensive lineups further down, but the Daleks were running out of weaponry as well. They had stopped getting creative with their attacks and had resorted to the simplest of battle tactics: break the front lines. The mid-levels were mostly transports, connected to the surface and the low-levels, but the constant bombardment from above made them unstable and frequently unsafe. The low-levels were where they put the civilians-- the elderly and the children-- the families, when there were families lucky enough to have stayed together. Below the civilian levels were the medical wards. Below the medical wards were the War Rooms-- below the War Rooms were the emergency Senate chambers, anywhere that a meeting might take place-- below the chambers were the rooms for the Gallifreyan High Command-- and the lowest, deep, deep down into the soil, where there were bridges spanning gaping chasms from Dalek attacks that had split the crust of the planet itself, was the room for the High Council.

Romana looked at the doors in front of her. At her right, the General. Behind them, six soldiers, the only ones who had working weaponry on such short notice.

She knocked.  _One-two-three-_  and no response. Not a whisper, not a movement.

She knocked.  _One-two-three-_

Perhaps they had saved themselves and left the rest behind to their fate? Or--

She moved to push open the doors, head held high.

_Gallifrey stands._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I hope you enjoyed, and comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Romana succeeds in the coup, an old enemy(?) makes an appearance, and a new perspective is introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Implied consumption of a Dalek due to the need to survive, so if that seems like something that will make you squeamish, skip the third-to-last and second-to-last sections between line breaks; it starts with "Tianna was nearing the alcove."

 Anti-climactic was probably the closest word she had for the situation at hand.

The room was utterly silent at their attempted entry. Romana eyes narrowed a fraction at the door, and she pushed at it with more force; it opened slowly, chunks of rubble and stone scraping across the floor with the movement. The lights, already dim to begin with, so far down beneath the surface, flickered weakly. There were bodies strewn across the cracked tile floors, and at the far edge of the room, a metal gateway had warped and twisted until it was hardly recognizable. Romana took in as much of the destruction as she could with a single glance and decided she most likely did not want to know where that gateway led, not right now. Behind her, she could hear the guards shifting uneasily, and the General's discomfort trickled past his mental shields and into open thought.

She stepped over the body of the Seer, whose eyes were open but glassy, never to see again.

Around to the back of the overturned table, hidden from line of sight from the door-- four conscious, most likely the only four left alive, two dressed in the robes of the Presidential Guard and two dressed in the robes of the Shamed. The first two were  _clean_ , their robes thick and crimson, and not a thread was out of place. Rassilon would hardly allow himself or anyone seen with him to appear less than perfect, even as the planet fell apart around them. As for the others-- well. They had voted against Rassilon's wishes, and were thus punished appropriately.

They had paired off, one Shamed and one guard kneeling on the ground next to something Romana couldn't quite see. The others were also kneeling by one another, but the guard was working on removing the implant from the base of the Shamed's neck; the other Shamed bled steadily, stains meshing with the red of her collar, the implant a knot of metal on the ground with the rest of the scrap.

Most would say that the Shamed were lucky. They had not been executed for voting against Rassilon's plans when no one else dared to do so. But to be Shamed-- it was a blight which could not be erased. The Shamed were overlooked. They were not to be spoken to; they were to be ignored if they spoke; they were permitted food if someone gave it to them, but it was taboo to acknowledge them, so most wasted away. The implants prohibited any psychic connection, trapping the mind inside itself, and that was why Romana had to disagree with those who said the Shamed were lucky. She was fairly certain she would rather face death than have her mind be crippled in such a way.

"I would like an explanation," she finally said, after the Shamed had his implant removed and the guard had set down their crude surgical tools with shaking hands. Her words flipped a switch-- all four looked up, and the guard with blood still wet on their fingers scrambled to their feet, snapped into an unsteady salute. When they lowered their arm, there was a smear across his forehead.

"My Lady Chancellor!" they said.

The guard still kneeling gave a helpless shrug.

The General stepped to her side. "I do believe you were asked a question."

Rassilon was not present. He _should be present_. She let her mind reach out, just a little bit, and found the oppressive weight of his presence had vanished entirely from the Citadel.

"The Final Sanction," responded the guard still standing at attention. Baffled by Romana's abrupt appearance and still clearly shaken from whatever events had occurred within the room before her arrival, they at least recognized the authority of the General -- who, technically, was their commanding officer. "The Lord President called it the Final Sanction. It was a plan in which the rest of the universe would be destroyed, and the Time Lords alone would ascend to a higher form of consciousness." Their voice was mostly even, another trait drilled into them by war and training, but their eyes betrayed the horror they felt, as did their mind. Fear permeated the air; Romana did her best to strengthen her shields. "He sent a signal, my Lord General, my Lady Chancellor-- back in time, to the Untempered Schism, so that we would be link to the outside world."

That made no sense.

"That makes no sense," the General said before she could. "All have been called back to defend our homeworld."

"The Seer--" And the guard looked around for a moment, like they expected the old crone to be lurking in the shadows, but they only saw her frail body lying on the floor. "She-- said there were only two who could survive the War's end, my Lord General. The Doctor and the Master."

There was a moment in which she felt nothing different. The General continued to frown. 

And then they both made the connection-- and Romana suddenly felt ill. Not surprised, not horrified; the War had continued on too long for those emotions to mean anything to her, but to compromise a mind of such  _genius_ \--

"The _drumbeat_?"

"Yes, Lady Chancellor."

"So a link to the outside world..." The General's frown deepened. "How did  _that_ result in the death of the High Council?"

The guard still standing continued to tremble; the Shamed one was still on the ground, sobbing in relief. The guard kneeling quickly spoke up when he saw no one else would.

"Gallifrey was pulled out of the Time Lock we were placed under so that the Final Sanction could be implemented, to-- to Sol III, where the Doctor and the Master were both present, and... he had a weapon, my Lady Chancellor? I think it was a weapon. It was powder-based, a simple thing, but the link was tenuous. The Lord President used the Master as that link, and the Master used a device to amplify the signal so that Gallifrey could break free, and the Lord President-- upon arrival, the Lord President refused to take the Master back. The Lord President said he was... diseased. Broken."

"The Doctor could fire upon the Master or the Lord President, and the link would be broken, and the temporal waves resulting from the breakage would bring the Doctor back into the Time Lock with us," the guard at attention continued when the other one faltered. "But-- he told the Master to move, and shot the device that had been used to amplify the signal, and-- the Master, my Lady Chancellor."

The second Shamed spoke up for the first time-- a woman's voice, inexplicably gentle in the midst of all the destruction. Her hair was gray. Romana thought she knew the woman's face, but could not think of how. Her mind reeled "He saved us."

"None of us-- we couldn't-- we couldn't question the Lord President," said the guard next to her.

"Something went wrong on the Master's last regeneration," the Shamed woman continued. "His essence isn't locked onto his body, giving him capabilities beyond imagination and killing him in the process. He attacked the Lord President." And she pointed to the overturned table. Romana locked her knees to keep herself from collapsing; behind her, she could hear a whispered oath from one of the guards; the General made a sharp breath. Further back in the room-- a crumpled set of robes and a staff lying on the floor, an empty glove wrapped tightly around it. "He... he is dead, my Lady Chancellor."

Gallifrey alive, Rassilon  _dead_ , and the Doctor-- he had survived, somehow, against impossible odds. Romana was very glad he had failed to use the Moment, thankful to whatever had caused him to change his mind-- he wasn't meant to survive it, none of them were, and she would never have wanted him to live with that guilt.  She took a slow breath in, slow breath out- tried to push her thoughts into some semblance of order, locking her mental shields tightly down around the fringes of her consciousness to prevent anything from straying loose.

"You said  _is_ in the present tense.  _Is_ , not  _was_." The General continued to frown. "The Master's essence  _isn't_ locked onto his body."

There was a heavy pause. Even with her shields up, the two Shamed were projecting so loudly it was starting to give her a headache. The loss and abrupt regain of telepathic control was traumatizing at best, so she  _did_ understand-- but their minds went quieter at the General's words. 

The Shamed woman shifted to the side, and  _then_ Romana and the General could see precisely what they were kneeling around and why none of them seemed to know what they should do, why none of them had come to find anyone in the past several hours from when the Council's plans had failed. The man curled into a tight ball on the floor was shivering, making no noise, even as a pulse of energy ran through him and he shuddered with the force of it. Romana was able to see straight through his skull to the tile below.

She recoiled in instinctive horror. That was-- that  _was_ \--

"My Lord General," she said with a surprisingly calm voice, unable to tear her eyes away from the Master on the floor. "The guards are under your jurisdiction. I will leave you to do as you see fit. The two of  _you-_ -" She forced herself to look at the Shamed woman instead. "--get him into the medical rooms."

The General was good at giving orders, so that was what he did. The Shamed collected themselves enough to pick the Master up, one on either side of him, and start carrying him towards the doors. Romana stepped over a piece of warped metal that looked as if it had melted to the floor and made her way to where the crumpled robes were on the ground. The Key was on a chain, hidden underneath the folds of thick, crimson fabric, and the Sash was mostly at the bottom of the pile. She didn't dare touch the Glove, feeling its power calling to her, singing songs of battle and glory and--

 _No more_.

She turned the fabric over until she found the Key, slid it into her pocket, and stood, leaving the rest where it lay. That needed to be contained, but by someone who knew how to do it.

Romana knew she was saner than most were, in this War. But she had retained enough self-awareness to recognize that if she had been planning to assist in dual genocide, she should not be allowed to go near that level of concentrated power.

Regenerations gone wrong, those were comparatively easy to fix compared to the things they had been fighting, the things that the Daleks had unleashed on them. The Shamed and the Master left the room-- the General bit out orders to the guards,  _clear the room_ and  _remove the bodies_ and so on--

"My Lady President?" The General surveyed the chamber. "This room isn't large enough for a full Council meeting. What should be done about the other Councilmembers?"

"Find them, inform them they are relieved of their positions and that the High Council is disbanded until further notice."

The guards within earshot went rather pale; one looked vaguely ill at the prospect of telling the High Council something they almost certainly wouldn't want to hear. The General met her gaze, nodded once, and gave a few more orders to the handful of guards around him.

"I want all the soldiers you can spare reassigned to maintaining order and our authority. Once news gets out of Rassilon's death, there will be plenty looking for power. Once the shock wears off from the sudden lack of enemy ships in the sky, there will be plenty looking for a way to get off-planet."

"That will be slightly more difficult..." The General looked at the battered room-- thought about how worse the destruction was on the higher levels-- thought about the state the planet was in-- the state the  _people_ were in. They had been downsizing their ranks, running their soldiers into the ground by assigning several tasks to a single person that would normally be split up between an entire squadron. Comparing the numbers he had now to the numbers he had possessed at the start of the war... "It will be done."

They had far too much work to do.

* * *

She wasn't sure how long it had been since the sky had changed.

It was a slow sort of change, but noticeable all the same. Tianna wasn't sure what it could mean, the sky changing like this, but she had come to the conclusion that it wasn't a  _bad_ thing. The planet was quiet now -- unnaturally quiet, too quiet; the space between raids had never lasted this long before -- and she hadn't seen a live Dalek for a while. There were no bombs anymore, no fire. The dark smog that clogged up the air had started to dissipate, leaving a dark sort of orange sky overhead. Iota and Viram were sleeping easier at night, which in turn made Tianna sleep easier.

From what she remembered from the shelter (not a lot, and most of what she did remember, she tried to forget), the matrons said that time was tangled, and they were all in the shelter because their parents had died, so there wasn't any way to know how old any of them they were, not really. The shelter was gone now, and so were all the other children. It was only the three of them left.

Tianna was obviously the oldest, and Viram was obviously the youngest, and Iota, therefore, was somewhere in the middle. Iota and Viram depended on her to keep them all alive, and she depended on Iota and Viram to give her a purpose, a reason to keep going. If she only had to look out for herself, it would be easier to die than to live.

They stayed on the edges of the Wastelands, straddling the edge between scorched earth (she was reasonably certain the matrons had called it a "forest") and hundreds of miles of crashed Dalek ships and battle TARDISes alike. The Citadel was a pillar of black smoke and dim light in the distance, a smudge the size of her thumb on the horizon. The alcove the three of them had was rocks and scrap and whatever else they could scavenge. Their defense was a rifle Tianna had dredged out of some wreck; she could shoot, and when her hands weren't shaking, she could shoot well.

She was very hungry. They were all very hungry. She had never known a time when they all weren't so thin, but something in the back of her mind told her it wasn't meant to be like this.

It was, though, wasn't it? It had always been like this.

But the air was harsh and burned her throat and eyes. The ground could get too hot to walk across, and she was the only one of their trio who had a pair of shoes. The place they got their water from seemed like it should hold a lot more water than it did. The matrons had spoken of something  _before_ , when there were things called "trees" and "snow" and no one needed to stay in a shelter.

When there weren't any Daleks.

Tianna was skeptical. She'd seen a lot of people go mad, and a world without Daleks didn't seem like it was possible.

Her stomach groaned in protest. She had already shot down their meal for the day, but it was hardly enough, even before the animals had been hit by a blast meant to pierce Dalekanium. There was nothing else left to find-- she had been looking for  _hours_ , and there was nothing, and she needed to get back to Iota and Viram--

A glance at the sky told her it was empty. She listened and heard nothing but the sound of her own breathing.

So, mind made up, she turned and set off, running as swiftly as she could, scrambling over wreckage and debris and hoping she didn't fall. Falling could be dangerous-- falling could be  _deadly_ , and she didn't even know if she was old enough to regenerate or not. As far as she was concerned, the only world that existed right now consisted of herself, Iota, and Viram, and if she was hurt, they would die. If they were hurt, they would die because she wouldn't be able to help them.

The risk of falling, of breaking a limb, of slicing a hand or foot open on a jagged piece of scrap, that was the only thing keeping her from making the journey across the Wastelands.

Here, at least, she knew where she could find food and water. It wasn't a lot of food or a lot of water, but she knew where it was, knew how to find it, and she wouldn't if they traveled to another spot. Here was as safe as they could be right now.

Tianna slid down the embankment. The water sluggishly trickled over the rocks at the bottom, which were mostly dry from the heat in the air and the lack of precipitation. The Daleks had stopped using acid rain. They hadn't poisoned the water supply, either. They must have assumed Gallifrey was going to run out of water by itself and diverted their resources to other things.

Canister full, she turned around and started to head back.

* * *

"My Lady President."

"My Lord General." Romana turned, paused. "I've told you that you needn't bow. What use are formalities?"

It was a rhetorical question, so the General didn't answer. He straightened up from his bow, however, and adopted a slightly less formal pose, although in the case of the General it could easily be argued that "slightly less formal" was still significantly more formal than everyone else. Tradition was habit for him, a coping mechanism. Romana believed that everything had an order, but what use did they have for formalities now, when there was hardly anything left and no one to see how far they had fallen but for themselves?

"My apologies, Lady President."

All things considered, the planet was in the best place it could be in, after everything. Romana felt as though she was starting to make progress after more than a month of not sleeping. All weapons taken from the Time Vaults and the Omega Arsenal had been tracked down and put back where they had come from -- the planet was no longer at war, so there was no point to using any of them anymore.

The Moment had yet to be found, but that was a piece of information only a few were privy to.

The Citadel was slowly being repaired. Instead of all resources going to defense, they were being split between defense and reconstruction. Nearly the entire Gallifreyan populace was centered in a single location, and the levels on which they lived were unstable, unsafe. First and foremost, they needed to make sure their last place of shelter wouldn't collapse on top of them. Romana had people working on terraforming, on how, exactly, they would need to ration their available supplies to keep everybody alive. A planetwide announcement had been made as soon as she was able to do so, broadcasting systems dragged back into working order.

_Rassilon is dead. Gallifrey is safe, and not through his deeds. He died in an attempt to sacrifice the planet, intending to destroy all and save himself. Gallifrey is safe, and the war is over. The planet is in lockdown. Now, more than ever, we must stand together. Gallifrey is safe. Gallifrey stands._

The people, so caught up in the relief that the War might actually be  _over_ , didn't bother to question her. She intended to get as much done as she could before that relief wore off.

"No apology necessary, General," Romana replied. "Do you have news relating to the list I gave you?"

There were few people she could trust. The General was one of them; by default, in trusting him, she could trust the people  _he_ trusted, but that list was even shorter than her own. Her problem was that she didn't know how many of the people she could trust had survived.

"Andred died during the Siege of Arcadia. I still have people looking for his wife, though it's lucky we've managed to find records at all." The General was never anything but blunt. Romana appreciated it, really. Trying to sugarcoat anything in this War was an insult to the people who had lived it. "Most soldiers at Arcadia were erased. There are no records of Braxiatel. Arkytior was in command of the battle TARDIS  _Pandora_ , which needed to make an emergency evacuation fifty miles away from where Mount Perdition used to be. I ordered that the first ship repaired be sent out to retrieve them. Ailyua was lost when Arcadia fell..."

He paused there, allowed Romana a moment to gather herself. She had known, of course, that the Doctor's family was no longer alive. She could hear it in her friend's voice, when she helped him to steal the Moment. Yet-- there was a large difference between knowing and hearing it said aloud. Ailyua had been a good woman, had even tempered the Doctor's constant wanderlust.

"I am personally searching for the rest of the people on the list."

She took that to mean that he didn't have enough people to spare to have them doing the search, so he had added it to an already long list of tasks. "The High Council?"

"Are unhappy with your decision to disband them, as expected. There aren't enough of them left to cause trouble, not yet."

"The people are doing what must be done to rebuild and, for the time being, are content to do so." Androgar, though aide to the General and more well-versed in matters pertaining to war, had been relaying information to Romana that didn't revolve around military or strategic matters. She would have had someone from the High Command making those reports, but there were only a few members of that who had survived. "We do have a-- a slight problem, my Lady President, it..."

Romana raised a thin eyebrow as he trailed off, hesitating. The General slowly turned to look at him. "Well?"

Androgar shifted uneasily. "The planet is supposed to be in lockdown, but we aren't even in the same  _universe_ anymore. It won't be possible to cover for the lack of sky, of stars and moons and suns, for much longer. Our resources are almost entirely depleted-- we have a population of four billion centered around a single city that could collapse on them at any given moment. The Doctor, he said-- that we should have hope, Lady President, but we're stranded."

Androgar had a point, unfortunately. Romana had already come to the same conclusions he had but had not come up with any answers.

"And what would you suggest to remedy those problems, my Lord Androgar?" she asked tiredly, standing from her chair to pace. "Or, perhaps not even remedy. Assuage, temporarily. Ease the burden we currently carry."

The General was still looking at him. Androgar looked thrown by the unexpected question and fumbled for words.

"We have-- the wreckage."

"The  _wreckage_ ," the General repeated.

"Dalekanium is incredibly strong! And it can be melted down, we can use it instead of wasting what remains of Gallifrey's natural ores. The same can  be said for our destroyed ships and buildings. Um-- the same can be said for the buildings,  _sir-_ \- and-- we don't need the battle TARDISes in orbit, do we, Lady President? The energy they provide can be harnessed."

There were times when Romana felt she was missing an obvious solution. This was one of them, but she was willing to blame it on the War and how it warped everyone's minds to some extent.

The General looked vaguely impressed.

"That may just work." Romana turned her gaze toward the ceiling for just a moment. Miles overhead, she knew there were hundreds of thousands of crashed ships spreading out from around the Citadel. "Ground all but the bare minimum of battle TARDISes required for defense, harness the energy the rest can supply. I want calculations on how much power is required to retrieve and melt down the materials we need." A pause. "Pull the old terraforming dataprints and take them to the laboratories, see if the technicians can formulate an ecosystem designed to survive in these temperatures and lighting. As for the scrap being melted, our priority is rebuilding the city."

"Yes, my Lady President," Androgar said quickly. She nodded briefly to him, and he turned and hurried out, going to relay her orders to the appropriate people.

Running a government was easier when she didn't need to worry about rebuilding a planet, possible coups, and the majority of the governing body hadn't been brutally killed.

"Is there anything else, my Lady President?" the General asked.

"Start scouting for stray Daleks. They had forces on the ground during that last planetary bombardment. Even one getting into the Citadel would be disastrous."

He nodded grimly. "It will be done."

"Thank you, General."

* * *

Walking at a brisk pace suited her rather well in this regeneration. Romana liked that; it was good for getting places quickly, and people were more reluctant to get in her way.

She revoked the penalties which had been put on the Shamed at her earliest opportunity. Andrynn had thanked her profusely before leaving to find any of his surviving family. The second Shamed, an elderly woman by the name of Imala... Well, she was one of the people on the list Romana had given to the General. She had been a respected politician long before Romana had even been born. She had sat vigil over the patient with an infinite calm while the healers scurried about trying to keep up with the sudden influx of people they needed to treat-- the War was over, which meant there were no more casualties of battle, but there was still illness, disease.

"My Lord Master," Romana greeted softly when she arrived. "My Lady Imala."

"My Lady Romana," Imala murmured in reply.

The cause for their hushed tones was curled into as tight of a ball as he could manage, knees drawn up to his chest, hands laced through his now-red hair, elbows tucked in against his sides. He was lying with his back to the both of them, and the only reason Romana could tell he was still amongst the living was the slight tremble which ran through him occasionally, accompanied by a spurt of thought leaking past his mental shields, more vapor than substance and impossible to catch. Imala turned from Romana to regard the Master sadly-- Romana didn't understand that emotion, at least not directed toward  _him_ , but she ignored it.

"Has there been any change?"

Imala shook her head.

"It has been  _months_ since his regeneration.  _Nothing_ has changed? Are we sure he isn't-- biding his time, perhaps?"

As Romana had ignored Imala's concern for the Master, Imala ignored Romana's thinly-veiled implications. "The Nurse has declared him in perfect physical condition, which is why they let me tend to him instead of sending one of their healers to do it. They say that there isn't any more they can do, though I suspect they haven't tried very hard. He's locked himself deep in his mind so that no one can reach him."

Imala was right- the Time Lords were very good at ignoring their own atrocities while casting the blame onto someone else, they always had been. Gallifrey had come through hellfire and emerged intact on the other side, but warped, irrevocably changed. The people of Gallifrey had committed plenty of atrocities themselves, but it was easier for most to ignore that and scorn a more convenient target than admit to their own crimes.

"Has he  _moved_?"

"No. Sometimes he talks in his sleep, though I can't make out the words. I talk to him. It helps, I think."

And Romana was just as good at ignoring her own deeds, casting blame onto another, and maintaining her pride. She had been willing to assist in double genocide-- _had_ assisted, but for whatever reason, the Doctor hadn't gone through with it.

"I must turn my gaze to the planet as a whole before I focus on any singular person."

"I understand, Lady President, and I think you for your kindness." Imala smiled at Romana, but it was a muted smile, as though the older woman could hear her thoughts-- knew that Romana wasn't trying very hard, either-- knew Romana was already looking for specific individuals, and she simply had no interest in looking out for this particular individual.

"No, Imala, you have my thanks. I am grateful that you are here to care for him."

And grateful that Imala's watchful eyes kept the Master from rising up and wreaking havoc while they all slept.

Imala's gaze shifted from the door to the prone figure on the bed after Romana had left-- she reached out, hesitant-- touched his shoulder. It got no response. She drew back.

"There's only one kind of doctor that could help you now, I think," she sighed, quiet. "But he's far, far away..."

* * *

Tianna was nearing the alcove when she stumbled into the Dalek.

In the shelter, when the children reached their first half-century, or when the matrons assumed that the children had reached their first half-century, they were taught how to shoot. Taught how to look after themselves, should the situation ever arise.

Her eyes widened; her hearts seemed to skip a beat- before she could even think about her actions, she had swung the rifle up over her shoulder and let loose a single shot ( _conserve your fire_ , they told her,  _it's easy to run out, and if you run out, you'll die_ ). It echoed loudly across the blackened earth and hit the back of the Dalek's casing with a resounding  _clang_. A heartsbeat later, she cringed and skittered backwards to duck behind a piece of rubble-- it was facing  _away_ from her, it probably hadn't even known she was there and she had gone and  _shot it_ \--

But aside from skidding forwards at the impact, the Dalek hadn't moved. Tianna didn't move either, not until her lungs started to burn from lack of oxygen and she realized she needed to breathe-- and not breathing was a survival instinct used in vain, because it didn't matter if she wasn't making any noise, she'd show up on a scan all the same. So she sucked in a breath-- too loud, in the quiet, and forced her muscles to unfreeze, and peered out from her hiding spot.

It wouldn't do her any good if she was too scared to run. Running kept them alive, here.

No, it-- hadn't moved. There was a large scorch mark across the back of it-- and she swallowed nervously; the rifle meant to pierce Dalekanium would clearly not be as useful as she had thought it would be. But it hadn't moved, so she took a step forward, every instinct telling her to run, but she needed to  _know_ , couldn't leave a Dalek still alive so close to their alcove, couldn't risk it-- took another step forward, then another, and another, and another, and another, and she was close enough to touch it.

Her fingers, calloused skin stretched tight over bone, closed around the cold metal of the Dalek's eyestalk and swung it around to face her. There was a terrible-sounding screech and groan of metal, but no resistance otherwise, and when she saw that the blue light which haunted her dreams was absent, she could have cried. Her knees went weak from relief.

"You don't work," she whispered, like it might wake up if she spoke too loudly. "You're dead."

A Dalek could lay dormant for ages before waking up again, something which she knew all too well-- but this one was old. A large crack ran down the dome at the top of its head, and the bronze orbs that lined its armor lay on the ground at her feet, dented and rusty. She wasn't the first person to have shot it. A glance up at the sky told her that it was doing the exact same thing it had been doing ever since it changed, staying steadily dim, no fire or anything else to light it. A glance around told her that she was alone, not another soul in sight but for her and the dead creature in front of her, which carried ghosts of its own.

If she could get inside, scavenge its weaponry... that was stronger than anything they had, and Dalek guns never left a mark.

She shouldn't tamper. The children who had escaped from the shelter had been scavenging, and Eqyan went into a crashed ship--

Her fingers dug into the crack, metal tearing into her skin, blood welling up and smearing across the palms of her hands, but she didn't stop. The armor gave way after a brief struggle with a loud screech, her own hunger and desperation driving her to an action she knew she would never have taken in times before-- but they needed  _food_ and a means to get it, and if that meant ripping apart Dalek casing, then it meant ripping apart Dalek casing.

Half the dome landed on the ground with a low  _thud_ , and she tore off strips of her cloak to keep her hands from bleeding all over the wiring as she systematically took it apart.

She had trouble seeing in the new dim light of their world, but she could see enough, and her hearts sank. The weaponry was fused directly to the inside of the casing, and between the grating and the wiring, she didn't have the faintest idea as to how she would begin dismantling it, or even if it was possible. The Dalek corpse hadn't yet started to rot-- it's single eye was glassy, its flesh cold when her fingers brushed against it by accident. Tianna made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat and quickly wiped her hand off.

The Dalek corpse hadn't yet started to rot.

She eyed it warily. Poked it, after a moment, and it didn't move. She was hungry.

* * *

"Tianna!"

Iota looked up with a smile and waved. She was sitting in the back corner of their den, near the fire pit, and Viram was asleep in her lap. She stroked her fingers over his hair, not really trying to work out the tangles. That was a fruitless task, in their life, and besides, his hair would come out in tufts if she pulled even gently. The War had touched her, but she hadn't lost hope, not yet. Losing hope meant you wouldn't live any longer. She smiled and laughed and clung to the shreds of her innocence with a fierce optimism that frequently baffled Tianna, who was sad and serious and too old for her few years.

Tianna returned the smile with a slight nod, ducking into the entrance and unhooking the pouch from her belt along with the canteen they all shared. She needed to stoop so she wouldn't hit her head on the ceiling, and nearly had to crawl to get back to where Iota was sitting. She made it there eventually, and sat down next to the other girl.

"Did you get any food?"

"Three birds. Going to try something else as well." Tianna spoke in a tone that was deliberately light, taking a scavenged power cell and snapping it over the coals of their fire pit. The compound inside ignited with a flare, making the air smoky and Tianna a bit lightheaded, but at least it was warm. Then she tugged the overturned Dalek dome they used as a dish and started taking pieces of meat out of her pouch, cutting them into pieces and tossing them in. "If it's safe, we might eat better."

"Safe," Iota repeated, squinting through the hazy air and dim light. "What's the something else? I recognize the birds..."

Tianna picked out some feathers from a strip of meat and tossed them to the side before putting the meat in with the rest, splashed some water into the dome, and put the dome back into the coals. "Those are for you and Viram. I'll go out and get more for us tomorrow. I'll eat this when yours is done cooking."

Now curious, Iota shuffled over to get a better look at what Tianna was doing, careful not to wake Viram, still asleep - she had a long, slimy looking tentacle in her hand and was busy cutting it into pieces, periodically stopping to wipe her hands off on her pants.

"That's disgusting."

"I'm hungry, Iota."

"But..."

"I'm  _hungry_ ," Tianna repeated. "Just-- pretend it's squid, like the from the stories the matrons used to tell us about Gallifrey from before. When there were large rivers, and water in places bigger than rivers."

Iota's throat felt dry, the haze in the air making her eyes water and her nose burn. She took a sip of water from their canteen and gagged at the taste-- didn't spit it out, because that would be a waste. Carefully screwed the top back on, so that it wouldn't spill.

"Squid," she agreed, nodding slowly, and averted her gaze. "Okay. Hey, Viram, wake up! We have food!"

* * *

Elsewhere, some unknown time, some unknown place, a little blue box drifted aimlessly amongst the stars, allowing the cosmic winds to push it where they would. Inside the box was far more than one would probably expect from a box that size, but perhaps the most interesting thing inside that box, including the large amount of space and the mechanics of it all, was a man.

At the moment, this man was standing in front of a screen by a round console, eyes flickering over intersecting circles and lines faster than anyone should possibly be able to read. The lighting cast sharp shadows over his face and hands.

“Aha!” The exclamation was quiet, but it seemed very loud in the otherwise empty room, the only noise to accompany it the soft hum of ancient engines. “Gotcha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I hope you enjoyed, and comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time Lords are good at Arguing; the Master is still hanging around (can't get rid of him); the kids aren't all right, but they keep pushing forward.
> 
> This one's kind of filler-ish, but we get another perspective on everything that's happening, _and_ Eleven shows up next chapter, which makes everything infinitely more interesting by default of his presence.

Imala hadn't left the Master's side since Rassilon had dragged them out of the Time Lock and attempted to destroy the universe. It was a bizarre combination which kept her there, a sense of obligation and some insane notion of _hope_ which had started to blossom between her hearts, and the two were so mixed together that she wasn't sure which one was which anymore. It didn't really matter that much, she supposed –- she was there either way.

She had lived a very long life. She had seen a great many things. She knew how terrible the universe was capable of being. She knew what the Daleks would do when left unopposed. She knew what war could do to a person, and what _this_ War had done to a person. She had seen the insanity in Rassilon's eyes.

What better were they than the Daleks if they were willing to destroy everything for their own gain?

And she had taken a stand, but she had done so far too late. She was complicit in all actions taken, albeit through her own _in_ action, and so she stayed with the Master ever since he had sacrificed himself to what he knew would be a slow, torturous death at the hands of Rassilon himself. Since he had died to save her little boy.

Well. Her little boy was not so little anymore. She was an old woman, now-- she remembered the current President as an infant. Yet it only seemed like yesterday that her little boy was running through the fields of red grass on their estate, the many hills that rolled up to meet burnt orange skies, and collapsing underneath the shade of silver trees and laughing as a breeze sent glimmering leaves twisting and tumbling through the air.

Her Theta, her _son_... They had been such a wealthy family, back in the day, when there had been so much less to worry about. She had been born to a set of rich parents who held the strong belief that she should never have to work a day in her life and wanted her to marry someone who would be able to support her. She'd managed that easily enough, and she _did_ love her husband for more than his money, but he was a laid-back sort of person while she was more suited to actions, and she wound up going into politics while he had stayed at home. The arrangement was one they were happy with.

And then, when her dear husband had died, when Theta was still just a child, he'd left all of his money to her. He was the last of his House, and hers, the House of Sigma, was his legacy.

Koschei was a good boy, with a similar family and a similar upbringing to her own son, though the both of his parents were still alive, and she considered them to be significantly more distant to their son. But it wasn't her place to comment on such things, and it wasn't her place to pry, so she never did.

Her little boy had always been quiet, much more interested in his books than anything else, and he was always finding increasingly stranger and out of the way places to read. Koschei had been the same, but more solemn. And when her little boy had gone off to the Academy, she had heard almost nothing until the term was up, and he came flying home, practically begging if his new friend could come and visit sometime please? Koschei had brought out a sense of courage in her son, prompted a willingness to speak his mind that she had never seen before.

She had watched those two boys grow up. She had raised both of them. She had listened to their stories of where they would take their TARDISes, when they finally got them and received their licenses, and how they would go flying off to see the universe together. She had seen all the mischief they had got themselves into over the years. She watched carefully as they ran through the fields, careful not to let them stray too far just yet. She remembered the horrible times when they fought and wouldn't speak to each other for days on end, each too stubborn to actually talk the problem out rationally. They always managed to apologize without quite apologizing in that way only young boys were capable of, but the parts in between were miserable for them both. She remembered when Koschei ( _I am Master of my own destiny; I bow to no one's will unless I wish it)_  had snapped and fled the planet without warning, and her Theta (or perhaps it was her Doctor) had thrown himself into his work, locking that whole fond childhood into a box in his mind and steadfastly refusing to think of it.

She remembered when her little boy, then a grown man, had settled down, something which she never really thought would happen. He had married, and he'd had children, and his children had children, and he turned into a respectable gentleman with an elderly face that quite commanded respect. He had a reputation for eccentricity and maybe a bit of madness, but the respect was there all the same. She had grandchildren and nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews, and her family which had, for so long, been but herself and her son, grew and grew.

Abruptly, no warning, no goodbye, he had taken his granddaughter Arkytior and flown away in a stolen TARDIS -– not even his _own_ TARDIS, it had been a stolen, faulty one from the repair chambers, one not registered to him and less easily tracked –- and she had never seen her son or her great-granddaughter again. Not for hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years, not all through the War, not until that fateful day that Gallifrey had been ripped from its cosmos of hellfire and taken to Earth.

 _Get out of the way_.

Perhaps it was a mother's ignorance, though she desperately wanted to think that it was a mother's intuition. They had only been five words, but those five words were enough to make her think that her boys were still alive somewhere, buried deep, deep down.

Perhaps she was wrong entirely. Perhaps she was seeing things that weren't there, trying to assuage her own guilt. Perhaps the War had driven her mad, too, and Rassilon had succeeded in his plans. But regardless of whether she was right or wrong, she was here, and she had no intentions of leaving.

“Do eat, Koschei,” Imala implored of the trembling man on the bed, taking the bowl into her hands. “Please, won't you eat?”

There was a long pause, and she had given up on expecting a response. She hoped for one, but she never expected it. And then-- his hands relaxed ever so slightly so that they were no longer clamped over his ears. He had been gripping and pressing hard enough to bruise; blood crusted under his fingernails and around crescent marks in the skin.

“It's not my name,” he rasped. There was no emotion in his voice, no inflection. Imala's hearts stuttered. “Don't call me that. It isn't my name.”

“Very well.” Imala set the bowl to one side and leaned forward to touch his shoulder. He flinched away. “Tell me, then, what _is_ your name?”

He didn't answer, this time. However, when hours had passed and the lights inside had dimmed and neither of them had gone to sleep, she placed a hand on his arm, and he didn't pull himself away.

* * *

It had been a long time since the sky had changed. They weren't quite so hungry, now.

Tianna crawled out of the smoky confines of their shelter and peered up at the sky. As always, it was a dim, burnt orange-brown, wisps of smog still shadowing the air. If she squinted, she could make out the trails of TARDISes high above –- recently, a couple days or a week or two ago, ships had careened overhead, spreading a strange sort of gas. They'd panicked until Viram had drawn a saucer shape in the dust with his fingers. The Daleks were gone, and those were not Dalek ships.

The next day, the wilting shoots of grass that had been miserably crawling upwards toward the nonexistent sun seemed a little bit stronger, a touch more colorful. They poked at the soles of her feet through the crumbling material of her shoes, sharp and pointed, red like blood.

Still, if the ships were not Dalek, they had to be Time Lord, and all evidence pointed to the ships doing good things. Tianna rationalized this, accepted it, and continued pushing on. Survival was their priority.

They weren't as hungry, but that wasn't saying much. The river, water still a muddied hue and foul-tasting, came up past Tianna's ankles. Off in the distance, far across the Wastelands, the smoke had stopped pouring into the sky from the wreck of the Citadel.

Viram scuttled after her, climbing up onto her shoulders so he could see better. Iota was quick to follow them both out.

“Do you think they'll start clearing the wreckage away soon?” Iota asked.

Tianna looked at the jagged metal that stretched for miles upon miles all around them, and she looked toward the Citadel, a steady dim glow in their perpetual twilight.

“I hope so.”

* * *

“My Lady President.”

“My Lord General, my Lord Androgar.”

“As requested, I have brought all available footage pertaining to how the Doctor's incarnations brought us here,” Androgar said, rising from his bow. “The quality is poor; the discs were damaged in the final attack.”

“One would expect.” Romana went to stand at the General's side; Androgar valiantly forced himself not to be nervous at standing next to two of the most powerful people on the planet and traced in a code on a newly repaired panel. They were meeting in one of the old Senatorial Chambers; the underground rooms which had been used during the War were being reinforced so that the entire Citadel wouldn't collapse in on itself.

A foolish way to die, after all that they had been through.

“As far as any of the technicians can tell, he managed to use the stasis cubes to place Gallifrey within a pocket universe,” Androgar explained, the three of them watching the holorecordings fly up into existent. “It's never been done before. They're struggling to understand the theory behind it.”

“Remind them they are dealing with thirteen incarnations of the Doctor,” Romana sighed. “The laws of the universe tend not to apply with him.”

“It will be done, Lady President.”

And then they stepped back to watch in silence, Romana keeping her expression carefully neutral. She saw three of the Doctors show up, two faces she didn't recognize and the one that she had helped into the Omega Arsenal. She watched them cheerfully announce their hastily cobbled together plan. She watched them laugh in the face of what should have been inevitable.

Oh, heavans above. All thirteen, indeed.

“A parallel pocket universe,” she repeated when the footage had run to an end. “I am at a loss on the theory myself. Have they confirmed whether or not we can break out of this supposed pocket universe on our own? Or am I correct in assuming that, to return, we would require someone from our original universe to... unlock the doors, so to speak, and help us through?”

The General nodded. “That is their understanding on the matter, yes.”

“The Doctor will save us,” Androgar piped up. “He put us here, he can get us out.”

“Then why hasn't he done so already?” the General countered. His memories of the Doctor were not particularly fond. He was more than prepared to debate the point with his aide.

Romana took in a slow, measured breath. “ _Gentlemen._ ”

“Apologies, Lady President,” they quickly said. Androgar stared at the hem of his robes.

She smiled. “Accepted. Perhaps this isn't the best time for analyzing the Doctor's capability of doing what ought to be impossible?”

“Of course, Lady President.”

“Understood, Lady President.”

“Mm. Our supplies have been inventoried and rationed?”

“Reports show that our current supplies will last for the next standard decade, Lady President,” Androgar told her, still staring at the hem of his robes.

“I want copies of the supply dataprints within the day.”

“It will be done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I hope you enjoyed. Comments and kudos are much appreciated!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven is here! Shenanigans are had, but what else can you expect from him? The Time Lords are still good at Arguing. The kids still aren't all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been up since 5AM Friday and it is currently 2AM Saturday morning, so here is a chapter before I go to sleep, since I know my brain is gonna be a tiny bit scrambled whenever I finally wake up. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: mentions of illness, but not graphic, and it won't be fatal.

****It had been a decidedly daunting task when the Doctor had finally gone to scour the depths of his TARDIS library for information on pocket universes. He certainly understood the theory and the work behind it –- he _had_ put Gallifrey into one, he wouldn't have risked something like that on pure _luck_ (except he would have, he _would have_ , know that we failed in doing the right thing, instead of succeeded in doing the wrong)--

He understood the theory that went into pocket universes, but most of the textbooks and documents he needed were on Gallifrey, and Gallifrey was what he was trying to _find_ again, and most of Gallifrey's archives had been destroyed in the early stages of the War _anyway_. So.

A very daunting task, indeed. He had a copy of almost every single book written in Earth history, tens of thousands from other planets, the _Encyclopedia Gallifreya_ and the book he had written himself, _The History of the Time War-_ \- and that was all _just_ in the library. He probably had thousands more floating around in odd places, and the dimensions of the TARDIS were infinite. He had found a book about cake decorating in one of the bathrooms the other day, bookmarked to a section on fondant.

 _The History of the Time War_. A wholly inappropriate, giddy sort of smile crossed his face. He'd need to rewrite that. The Time War wasn't over yet, and the information in that book wasn't even _accurate_ anymore. Gallifrey had never fallen. He-- _ooo_ , he could call it a book-in-progress! He'd need to add in the part with the Moment, and when he found Gallifrey, he would need to put that in, and explain everything that had happened after.

A book-in-progress sounded like it could be fun. He could be an official author some day, how _cool_ was that?

Adjusting his bow tie, the Doctor nearly bounced through the room, tugging books off shelves in a pattern that appeared to be random and setting them down on one of the tables scattered about. Once several piles of books had been amassed, each of them a few feet tall, he sat down in a chair, pulled out his reading glasses, and grabbed the one closest, pouring over the words like he had never read a book in his life. There was so much information, and floating here in the Vortex, he had all the time in the _universe_. Oh, he was relatively certain that the euphoria would die down within a couple decades or so, but he couldn't just _not_ look. What was he supposed to do, leave his planet to burn in the darkness?

They hadn't been kind at the end of the War. One could argue that they had never been kind to begin with. But he was who he was, forever moving, forever _hopeful_.

It became clear after-- well, after _some_ amount of time, he wasn't really keeping track-- it became clear after a while that his own library wasn't enough. He'd written out four _more_ books to add to the collection, formerly blank pages now smudged and stained with ink, his notes scrawled in a dozen different languages.

He bounded off toward the console room, letting out a whoop of laughter that echoed behind him when he saw coordinates already inputted into the screen.

* * *

He went to several backwater planets where information was the sole source of trade, careful to keep his head low and not attract too much attention. He _could_ do discreet, thank you very much!

Though he may have accidentally aided a rebellion along the way.

He paid a visit to Dorian's head, deep down in the catacombs; he flew off to Earth in the far future and hacked into their databanks -– he was _reasonably_ certain that one of his incarnations was banned from the planet during that century, so he didn't hang around for too long. 

He spoke with the Shadowers of the Schism, a race well-known for somewhat ridiculous prophecies spouted out in bad iambic tetrameter, but they would provide accurate information, for a price. He went searching through a couple storage rooms in the TARDIS until he found a crystal ball he had gotten from them in the future and traded it for quite a bit of useful knowledge. They'd probably give it back to him in a couple centuries –- or a couple decades ago, if one was going by his timeline and not theirs.

He went to the Library. It hurt more than he expected to, though he _had_ expected it to hurt, but he focused on the good things and it eased the heartsache, just a little bit. Besides, the Library was a planet-sized database, and he knew they would have information he could use. The Nodes stationed around were more than helpful, so he checked out a few dozen more books, banished any Vashta Nerada lurking within the pages, and lugged them all back to the TARDIS and pored over them just as he had been doing with all the rest of his information.

He fancied to think, in a moment when he had to put the pen down because his hand was starting to cramp and the words were starting to blur on the page, that if Clara had been on board and had walked into the TARDIS library right then, she would have only seen a book fort built on one of the tables and bypassed him entirely; he was nearly buried underneath piles of paper.

He couldn't really bring himself to care.

And finally, when all other options were exhausted, he went to go and visit some people that knew a great deal about planets gone missing.

* * *

The Shadow Proclamation was not happy to see the Doctor. They never were, but this probably had something to do with the last time they had met, when he had defied a direct order from the Architect and ran away from a platoon of armed Judoon. That kind of, maybe, put him on their bad side.

As soon as he stepped through the TARDIS doors, he found himself staring down the barrels of a dozen rifles, all pointed at his face.

“Right!” he said brightly, smiling all the while, shutting the door behind him with a snap of his fingers, _very_ careful to make sure that his hands stayed above his head and in sight at all times. “I don't suppose you gentlemen would be willing to take me to see the Architect, would you?”

The leader of the platoon grunted and motioned for him to walk, ears flattening back.

The Doctor winced. “My apologies, madam. I did need to ask, though.”

They marched him off to a small room, chained him to a table, and then left him alone for a while. He _did_ get to see the Architect eventually, though it was more like _her_ coming to see _him_ and not vice-versa. She glared at him with piercing red eyes, and he smiled back at her, waving a cuffed hand.

“Hello!” He jangled the handcuffs pointedly. “Do you mind letting me out of these? This regeneration has rather sensitive skin. _Also_ , I've asked for a cup of tea, but nobody's bothered to bring me any. I think that's breaking your own Proclamation, don't you know. Aren't you supposed to make sure the needs of all prisoners are attended to? You know, Earth has something similar to that, they call it--"

“You are hardly in a position to be making demands, Doctor,” the Architect interrupted, glaring down at him with a blank indifference teetering into anger.

“Ah, but I am!” Smile never dimming, he leaned forward and lowered his voice so that she also had to lean down to hear what he was saying. “I've got wonderful news,” he whispered to her in a sing-song voice. He still felt utterly _euphoric_. “You won't believe me when I tell you.”

“Doctor, you are facing _criminal charges_. This is hardly the time to--”

“I broke through the Time Lock that contained the Time War,” he whispered, still in that sing-song voice, smile still playing on his lips. “Thirteen of me, if I'm being specific, but they're all still me, and I'm still them, so _really_ , it's just me. _I_ broke into the Time War, and _I_ saved Gallifrey. Now, _considering_ that I have prevented the extinction of a Level Nine species, I _believe_ I have a little bit of leeway here.”

The Architect jerked backward in shock, but he spoke before she had time to gather her thoughts and held up his shackled hands. Talking was something he was very, very good at. “Now! Why don't you remove these, and we can happily exchange information about pocket universes. Also, I'm terribly sorry about the last time we met, but you _know_ me, hardly one to walk into battle nowadays. This soldier's seen his last war and doesn't particularly feel like going back. Also also also, I brought the planets back, so you can't be _too_ mad at me, right?”

She had turned a rather strange color, the Architect, and she didn't seem to be able to speak, but she made a short, jerking motion with her hand, and a Judoon entered the room to unlock the Doctor's handcuffs.

“That's more like it!” he said cheerfully. “Now, let's get started!”

* * *

Perpetual twilight.

Romana rather liked how the term applied to their situation, and she had resolved to keep on using it. Gallifrey was saved, yes, but they had no sun. There was some sort of light filtering through the cosmos, and they were _somehow_ avoiding death by hypothermia even as the planet slowly cooled, and the planet was still rotating even though there was nothing to orbit.

In twilight. Caught between the dark of night and the safety of the sun.

Well. They were the children who walked in shadows. It was only fitting.

Her first priority was to keep the planet habitable, to keep their dwindling, decimated population alive. That meant rebuilding the shelters -– individual buildings could come later, but they needed a place to sleep at night, a fire to keep them warm, food to fill their bellies. That meant making sure the terraforming was working -– and all reports so far said that it was, albeit slowly. It had been a very long time since they had lived in times of peace, and even the scientists' minds were hardwired to war. Androgar mentioned they were having trouble remembering how to create something that wasn't a weapon of mass destruction.

She wanted to start clearing the wreckage away, but it needed to wait. There were people who had fled from the cities out to the Wastelands in the first attacks; there was the crew of the _Pandora_ , still stranded in the Firefields; there were shelters that had moved out into the forests and mountains, to places less likely to come under fire from Dalek ships. Now, they were all blocked from the Citadel by miles upon miles of crashed Dalek ships and battle TARDISes alike. But it would do no good diverting resources to clearing their path when there was no safe space to come back to.

Perpeutal twilight.

Then again, darkness had to come before the dawn.

* * *

Tianna gritted her teeth and forced the nausea bubbling up her throat back down.

Whatever was happening to her-- she was sick, she knew, but she wasn't dying, she  _couldn't die yet_ \-- she hadn't mentioned it to Iota and Viram. They knew, of course; they were starving and small, but they weren't  _stupid_. They knew despite her silence, having survived together for so long that it was easy to tell when something was off. But she hadn't mentioned it, hadn't mentioned anything as being wrong, clinging to the vain hope that they hadn't noticed. She wanted to spare them what worry she could, when they already had so much else to worry about.

Like food. They needed food. They always needed food.

All the Daleks, from what she could tell, were gone. Food and water were slowly coming back into abundance, or what passed for abundance in comparison to Before. With luck, she could bring back enough food to last them for a day after a single trip. Just a couple sleeps ago, she had returned to their shelter with four birds and enough water to make a proper stew. The water in the nearby ravine came up to the middle of her shins at its deepest point. Every now and again, she saw patches of coarse, red-brown grass poking up through the blackened soil.

And as the days continued, she found she didn't even need to hunt because of the leftovers from the day before.

And as the days continued, she felt progressively _worse_. Her tongue turned to leather in her mouth; her head was pounding; her eyes were gritty. She felt too warm and too cold, and there were times she would feel lucky to hit the broad side of a TARDIS from inches away. She kept coming back to herself curled up on the ground somewhere between their shelter and the water, stomach trying to claw itself up her throat, and she never had any recollection of stopping to take a break.

 _Damn squid_ , she thought, and her stomach churned. Directly or indirectly, everything around them could trace the reasons for its occurrence straight back to the Daleks; their situation, the life they led, was no exception.

But they weren't hungry anymore.

“Tianna?”

“Hm?”

She blinked a couple of times. Presumably, Iota was standing in front of her, but the world was too blurry to tell.

“Tianna, Viram and I want to go for a walk. There's nothing dangerous outside, you've said so yourself, and we won't go very far. I know you haven't been feeling good and I didn't want to bother you but I promise you don't need to worry about us, and we won't go very far. Promise.”

There was a time when Tianna never let them leave the den unless she was with them. Iota couldn't carry the rifle. Viram _definitely_ couldn't carry the rifle. But there weren't any more Daleks, and if they didn't go too _far_...

“Stay safe,” she rasped, mustering up a smile. “Keep the den in sight.”

Iota beamed (presumably; Tianna really couldn't make out facial expressions right now, but the Iota-sized blur bounced up and down and scooped up a Viram-sized blur before darting out), and Tianna waited until she had left to close her eyes. She fumbled with the ties on her tattered cloak, pulling it off her shoulders in order to use it as a pillow. She just wanted to _sleep_...

* * *

The General had only met the Doctor a couple of times. He had been there when the Council had banished him from Gallifrey officially, the renegade Time Lord in his second incarnation and the General only in his first-- though it had been _her_ first, at the time-- still a young military officer with high hopes for the future. He'd been there when the Council had dragged the renegade back and charged him with breaking the First Law. He _distinctly_ remembered that incident –- wondering why nobody had charged him earlier, because everyone _knew_ the Doctor had been interfering for hundreds of years, and that the Valeyard had seemed a little bit suspicious, and _then_ everything had turned sideways, with the Master and _humans_ running amok... Time Lords did not get migraines, but he had a very bad migraine after that fiasco.

He had conveyed a very brief message to the renegade's eighth incarnation: the High Council wanted him to return home and fight in the War. The Doctor had, of course, refused, leaving them annoyed, but everyone assumed the planet would be fine without his help.

And then there had been that last, fateful day, and heavens above... He could be insane, utterly mad, but he had _saved_ them.

* * *

Romana had been called on directly by the White Guardian and told to help the Doctor, but when that task was said and done, she discovered that she hadn't really wanted to leave. She still considered him to be an idiot, of course, and it was obvious that he had failed his piloting test on more than one occasion -– in fact, she had been reasonably sure he hadn't passed the majority of his exams on the first go.

But despite all of that, she had started to warm to him. He wasn't intelligent in the conventional sense, but he had a remarkable ability to think up plans on a whim, to work around the constraints put in place. He had practical experience, something the Time Lords she knew on Gallifrey were severely lacking in. They sat and they watched and they wasted away and though the outside of their gilded cage was shining as bright as it ever did, past the surface it had rotted through to the core.

He was a good teacher, she realized at some point during her first incarnation. In his travels, he had learned far more things than she had been taught in the Academy, and he explained it all to her in a way that made it interesting. And that sense of excitement-- after staying for so long, how could she ever bring herself to leave?

But she did leave, when the Time Lords had called her back and she had refused to go. She could no longer stay with the Doctor, but she couldn't go _back_ \-- it was horrific there, she could see that now. Beautiful to look at, and it was _home_ , but she could never return to the same dull routine and the never-ending monotony of their age old task: observe, but do not interfere. She stayed away until news of the War had reached her –- no longer beautiful to look at, but still _home_ , and Romana would protect it until her dying breath.

She could credit the Doctor for having survived this far, and not because he was the one who had saved them all. It was because of him that she first thought she could be something _more_ than what had been planned out for her, that she could _grow_ , do things far above and beyond their outdated, mediocre expectations. He had taught her how to think beyond what was simply presented to her, something which had gotten her out of more than one tight spot in the War. He was the reason she had ran for President; he was the reason she had tried to push for sanity and logic in the middle of their war-torn madness; he was the reason she refused to give up when Rassilon had ripped everything away from her.

He was the reason she had dared to think of the universe before the survival of her own race and stolen the codes to the Omega Arsenal, where the Moment was being kept. He was the reason she had whispered those instructions in a blip of stolen time and told him to steal the weapon and never look back.

Romana looked out at the dim, dark, burnt orange void above them and watched as more shuttles tore across the sky, racing out toward the wilderness. The dome around the Citadel cut a jagged line across the sky -– she needed to make that a priority as well, it needed to be deconstructed, taken down. It was a hazard, for one thing, and she rather liked it more open. It might just be time for Gallifrey to start changing.

“Thank you, old friend,” she murmured up at the starless sky, posture ramrod straight under the weight of the presidential robes and collar. “Wherever you are, I thank you.”

* * *

Iota slowly worked her fingers through her friend's tangled hair. Tianna's skin was hot and feverish to the touch.

“Damn squid,” she muttered aloud. Viram looked at her curiously. The toddler hadn't spoken a word since the attack that had destroyed their shelter, but Iota was able to read his expressions easily by now. “Could be anything that makes her sick. But she's found Daleks before. We're hungry. Blame them for it.”

He made a face and crawled over, hands black with dirt. One stubby finger traced sloppy circleson the ground; Iota had to squint to see them in the gloom.  _W_ , it read.

“I'm going to go and get water now,” she agreed, and slowly got to her feet, trying to be quiet so she wouldn't wake Tianna. It was unlikely she would. Tianna hadn't really woken up for a while, now. Too long. “You know I need to run so I'm not gone for long, but I'll be careful.”

He nodded as seriously as a child his age could nod and took her place at Tianna's side. She didn't want to leave them alone, because Viram couldn't defend himself and Tianna was in no position to do anything, but they didn't have any other choice. They needed water. The stockpiles of food they had were dwindling without Tianna making regular trips out.

The black husks twisting out of the gravelly earth –- they _had_ been trees, Iota was sure of it, and this whole place had supposedly been something called a forest -– didn't have any leaves on them like the matrons had said they were supposed to, but there were a few new things poking up from the ground, sharp and coarse and determined to survive, just like the three of them. The further she ventured away from the Wastelands, the softer the soil became, less like gravel and more like dirt, like the dust the charcoal left behind in the Dalek dome they cooked in. The river, when she reached it, came up to her knees, and she paused to take a drink before filling their containers up.

On the way back, she spotted several birds pecking at the ground, at the shoots starting to grow. They were scrawny things, all dull feathers and sharp angles and cracked beaks, and Iota wasn't a very good shot. Wild luck managed to take down two, but that was more fluke than anything else. To make matters worse, their rifle was slowly losing power, and it wouldn't be much use after long.

Iota picked up the two birds and carried them in one hand, the rifle dragging along the ground behind her as she held it in the hand opposite. Being miserable wouldn't get them more food. She had to assume that they would find a way to get more food. Had to assume Tianna would get better. Besides, they had more water than they had ever had before – that was _something_ , wasn't it? There was less smoke in the sky. The frequent bursts of fire which had come from the Wastelands and dried forests had stopped for the time being, so the air was clearer than it had been in a long time.

She turned her gaze to the Citadel, so far away in the distance. Though it wasn't possible, not from so far away, she liked to imagine that she could hear the distant sound of constructors pulling wreckage out of the way. They would clear a path through the rubble so that the three of them could go back to the Citadel, where the rest of the shelters were, where there was food and real beds and people to help Tianna.

Soon. She'd walk across the Wastelands herself if she had to.

Viram looked up at her as she walked in. Tianna hadn't moved from where she was curled up in the back, still fitfully asleep.

“I got two birds,” she told him. “It will be enough for today. Could you start the fire?”

He toddled over to the center of the den, taking a power cell in his tiny hands and breaking it after a few tries. The fluid inside spilled into the firepit and burst into flame, thick smoke almost immediately clogging the air with its stench. Iota and Viram made a face at the same time, and she spoke without thinking: “Let's move it outside.”

He stared at her -– turned his head in her direction, at least; he had closed his eyes to the smoke, and his face was scrunched up.

“There aren't any Daleks, Viram. A smoke trail can't be tracked if there's nothing to track it. And Tianna's already sick, she shouldn't breathe this.”

That made sense to him, evidently. He took the birds from Iota; Iota set the rifle against the wall and grabbed the Dalek dome by its eyestalk, dragging it out into the open. Wisps of smoke spiraled up into the sky. Together, they plucked the birds and cooked the meat, and Iota made sure that Tianna drank some water. Just a couple sips, though.

The Citadel was far, far away, but they would get there eventually. They had to.

* * *

Okay, so _maybe_ his visit to the Shadow Proclamation hadn't _quite_ gone like he expected to. Even after he had talked them out of charging him with obstruction of justice, he had manged to find himself fleeing through the hallways, all the information he needed downloaded and secured onto his sonic screwdriver and maybe sort of a small part of the Proclamation's archives destroyed.

It wasn't _his_ fault. How was he supposed to know that the software wasn't compatible with the TARDIS interface?

At any rate, there were half a dozen Judoon firing at him as he ran, and to an outsider he probably looked insane, running through the halls and laughing outright. Just like old times! And it _was_ just like old times, it really _was_ , because Gallifrey was back, and with _this_ , he could finally start to search for it!

Skidding around the corner, his brown boots leaving scuff marks on the polished floors (and he would normally be more concerned about that if it wasn't for the Judoon leaving smoldering holes every few feet as their aim got increasingly worse), the Doctor snapped his fingers as he ran. At the end of the corridor, the TARDIS doors flew open just in time for him to dive inside. Another snap, and they swung shut again. He could hear the muffled bellows of the Judoon, and the console room shook as they opened fire.

“Oi!” he shouted, though it was unlikely the Judoon heard him or were willing to listen. “Don't you hurt my ship!”

To be fair, he _had_ accidentally destroyed a small portion of their archives. A large portion of their archives. Half of their archives.

But to be _fair_ , the TARDIS was far more important than some dusty old archive floating on a space station!

The room continued to shake in spite of his irate demands, and the Doctor rolled his eyes, climbing to his feet and resolutely ignoring it. He patted the console a couple times, soothingly, plugged the sonic into a small port by the monitor hanging down from the console, and watched the data stream past to join with the other information he had transcribed and uploaded.

“Come on, old girl,” he whispered, eyes wide. “Come on, come on, come on.”

The Architect was yelling at him from outside the ship. He ignored her, too. He had a _planet_ to find.

The monitor dinged, and the screen flashed a couple of times, and then the information came together, scrolling past. The Doctor managed to frown and chuckle at the same time.

“Well,” he said. “Well. _Well_. I really _am_ brilliant. I am really, certainly brilliant, because that right there is so amazing that I don't even understand it myself. Trans-universal quantum mechanics, I was never good in that class. Ah, it doesn't make sense, I _love_ it!”

The engines began to slowly creak and grind as they powered up, and the shooting of the Judoon and the screaming of the Architect faded away to the glorious noise of the TARDIS in flight. The time rotor in the center bobbed up and down with the sound, and a long-distant memory slowly surfaced from the back of his mind.

_That sound brings hope wherever it goes, to anyone who hearts it, Doctor. Anyone, however lost..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if it's not clear what the kids have been doing: they have the 'dome' of a Dalek, the top part with the lights and eyestalk, that they've overturned and cook their food in. They take power cells that they've scavenged and snap them over the dome, breaking it so that the volatile chemicals inside react with the oxygen in the atmosphere and letting the liquid burst into flames. And then they cook meat in it.
> 
> It's really Not Good, but they're surviving.
> 
> Anyway! Eleven! Writing him was such a change of pace from the rest of what's been done, and I hope I did him justice. As always, hope everyone enjoyed, and comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone meets! Kinda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Master isn't around much, yet; you'll see him later. The Time Lords stop arguing, for once. The kids are slightly more all right than they were before.

The air in their shelter was thick and heavy; still, Tianna refused to move from the back, where it was darkest, quietest, and Iota couldn't move her by herself. Viram tended to sit closer to the entrance, or play with the scrap outside, growing smaller as the days went on.

The younger girl knelt down on the ground so she was eye to eye with the little boy, who looked back at her solemnly. "You stay here," she told him. "You need to watch Tianna while I'm gone."

He nodded mutely, patting her cheek with a grimy hand. She smiled back at him before standing and draping the strap of the rifle over one shoulder. The weapon was as long as she was tall, and it dragged along the ground when she walked; its power packs had finally died, and they weren't the ones that they used for their fire, so she wasn't going to be able to hunt anything with it, but if she ran into anyone or anything,  _they_ wouldn't know that.

They needed water, at the very least. Maybe she would run across another Dalek shell. If she had to, she could go scavenging through the Wastelands.

Scurrying out into the dimly-lit world, she made a beeline for what remained of the forests and tried not to think about how much brighter it was back by their fire. If she looked over her shoulder, she could see the wisps of smoke trailing up into the sky. Out here, though, out in the open, it was dark, and the sky above her was like nothing she had ever seen. It was too still, too quiet-- endless and empty and vast, and it scared her almost as much as the raids did. And they were hungry.

The burnt wooden spikes seemed to mock her, casting peculiar shadows over the ground. _There aren't any Daleks_ , she told herself. _The Daleks left._

Her rifle didn't work.

Better dead than Dalek.

The den vanished from sight behind her. Viram was alone by the fire.

Iota paused to take a slow breath in. The dead trees were nothing but dead trees. She was halfway to the river. She had made the trip before, never with a problem. She kept moving, putting her feet one in front of the other, and forced herself not to panic. Panic meant dying. The matrons had always stressed that. Keep a cool head and there was a better chance of survival.

But she was better dead than Dalek.

She kept moving forward, just one foot after the other, and--

Three things happened at once to break the silence.

Perched up on one of the dead trees, alarmed at her approach, a bird let out a loud caw and took flight. She jumped, hearts suddenly pounding double time, and stepped on a branch that broke with a _crack_ , and she would probably need to pull splinters out of her foot and hope they didn't get infected-- and what could only be described as a feral roar seemed to echo all around her.

She didn't scream, because screaming attracted attention-- she didn't run, because she didn't know where the noise was coming from-- but the noise, it almost sounded like--

A blue box was slowly materializing on the opposite of the clearing she stood in. _That_ was where the roar was coming from, echoing in time with the box fading in and out of existence, and she brought the rifle to bear. It provided her less protection than the broken stick on the ground might, but _bluffing_ was a tactic, and if she could just buy enough time to run back to the shelter-- or away from the den, if she had to, because if something was going to chase her she wasn't going to lead it right back to Tianna and Viram--

But it  _sounded_ like a--

The box landed with a thud. Iota wobbled under the weight of the rifle and tried to hold it steady. The box seemed to _glow_ , a soft kind of light entirely unfamiliar to her, and there were illegible squiggles all around the top and across two panels on the front. If the words weren't Gallifreyan, they were Dalek-- but the Daleks were _gone_ , there hadn't been any in-- and the doors were opening. Iota curled her toes, digging them into the gravel.

The man in the doorway of the box froze, midstep, and held up his hands, quickly saying something in a language that she didn't recognize.

If it wasn't Gallifreyan, it was Dalek, but the Daleks spoke Standard, and this man _wasn't_ \--

Iota took another deep breath and adjusted her grip on the rifle.

He didn't _look_ Dalek, the man, but the Daleks had puppets, and it was impossible to tell that they weren't actually themselves anymore until the programming broke. He had a strap of fabric tied around his neck and a purple coat and pants that didn't quite reach his ankles-- something in her mind whispered _Time Lord_ even as she wondered where his robes were. Maybe he'd lost them.

Something changed in the man's expression. He looked very sad, the man.

“It's okay,” he said, slowly stepping out of his box. He was speaking Gallifreyan now-- he _was_ Time Lord, he had to be. Dalek nanotech destroyed any innate abilities Time Lords had, ability to speak their native tongue included. “It's okay, it's okay. My name is the Doctor, child. I'm a Time Lord. Like-- like you.”

“Not Dalek,” she whispered, more to herself than to him, but he heard her anyway.

“No, never.”

 _Not Dalek_.

They were so hungry.

She let the rifle drape over her shoulders and shuffled forward, hesitant-- frightened. The man watched her. He still looked sad. His hair was brown. His hands were clean. If he was a Time Lord, then the box was a TARDIS, and--

"Can you help us?" she asked him, looking up. His eyes were a muddy kind of color she didn't have a word for. "Our sister is sick, and we can't cross the Wastelands by ourselves, and the Citadel is so far away."

"Okay," the man whispered, his voice wobbling. The  _Doctor_. Even if he coudn't bring them back to the Citadel, maybe he could help Tianna. He knelt down, just like what she had done with Viram before she left their den, so they were eye to eye. He looked old and sad, the man, but kind. Like the matrons had been. He was soft, when he spoke. Gentle. "Can you-- can you tell me your name, child?"

“Iota,” she said quickly. “And our sister is Tianna, and Viram is with her-- _can_ you help us, can you take us to the Citadel, that _is_ a TARDIS, isn't it?”

“It is,” the Doctor nodded, slow. “Show me where your friends are, child. I'll do everything I can.”

* * *

He'd _wanted_ to land somewhere inside the Citadel, preferably in an old storage room where his TARDIS wouldn't attract too much attention, and then make his way to visit with the High Command from there. Though he didn't know when or what state Gallifrey would be in post-War at the time of his arrival, it was likely that the madmen who had taken the reins in the final days of the War would still be in power. He had prepared himself to deal with them. He had prepared himself to deal with Rassilon, if the occasion called for it. He had prepared himself to deal with the Master, who never seemed to be quite as dead as everyone assumed. All things considered, the Doctor hadn't expected a warm welcome. 

His home had never cared much for him. He had, of course, saved the planet, but their goodwill was unlikely to last.

But better a home who hated him than no home at all, right?

So, being held at gunpoint, that was something he expected. Just not the instant he left his console room.  _Certainly_ not by such a tiny little thing. Then again, he never really intended to be held at gunpoint at any given time, but he seemed to manage one way or another.

She was-- so  _small_ , the human equivalent of seven or eight, filthy, wide brown eyes peering out from a gaunt face. The rifle she carried was too large for her to hold with ease; her dress was a gray-brown that might have been red once upon a time, like most of his people's clothes, one sleeve missing and the hems and seams all starting to fray; her hair was done up in limp braids, brown like her skin, the colors made even darker by the dim light and the grime that covered her.

"Don't shoot!"

And he was _maybe_ having problems when that became instinct to say. He hadn't even though about it before the words were out there.

The child just continued shaking like a leaf in the wind, watching him, uncomprehending. The Doctor's mind raced, even as his stomach churned.

A young Gallifreyan, born during the War-- she had never seen into the Untempered Schism, had probably never been taught another language after Gallifreyan except for Standard-- and if she was all the way out _here_ , she had to have been in one of the shelters outside the city before it was destroyed, stuck without a way to get back. An orphan girl with no parents to pass down their knowledge, to look out for her.

His hearts ached.

“It's okay,” he said, the Gallifreyan words feeling wrong on his tongue. Had he even bothered to speak his own language in this regeneration?

Assured he wasn't a puppet, she approached him like a wounded animal, slow, frightened. Standing in front of him, the top of her head was level with his waist, her limbs like twigs, fingers like brittle matchsticks curled around the shoulder strap of her rifle, the point of it dragging behind her and cutting a rut through the gravel.

"Can you help us?" she asked him. "Our sister is sick, and we can't cross the Wastelands by ourselves, and the Citadel is so far away."

"Okay," he answered, but his voice cracked, and he found himself fighting back tears. His home had rejected him, and perhaps it always would, but the  _children_ \-- two and a half billion lives, all of them survivors-- for this little girl and her sister and her brother to see a world that was no longer at war for the first time in their  _lives_ \-- "Can you-- can you tell me your name, child?"

"Iota." Her voice was paper-thin, and she spoke so quickly that he struggled to understand what she was saying. She spoke as though every second counted, trying to fit the most amount of words in as small a space as possible. “And our sister is Tianna, and Viram is with her-- _can_ you help us, can you take us to the Citadel, that _is_ a TARDIS, isn't it?”

Arcadia had fallen first, on Gallifrey. Billions had flocked from the Citadel and the smoking rubble of Arcadia to forge their way in the wilderness, digging shelters for the children and the refugees, but those shelters were the first to fall after the military strongholds. Millions killed. Billions orphaned. And then, when the planet-wide bombardment had begun, there wasn't much of anywhere that was safe. 

“It is,” he told her gently. “Show me where your friends are, child. I'll do everything I can.”

Her fingers curled around his wrist, nails digging into his skin, and she did her best to drag him along. He had enough time to close the doors to his TARDIS before hurrying after, following her along a seemingly random pathway, no obvious landmarks to indicate where they were going. The sky above them was a dull kind of rust-brown, patches covered in smoke and smog, no stars or sun or moons; he could see evidence of terraforming, though, attempts to keep the planet alive in a drastically new environment. The earth underneath their feet was charred and black, closer to gravel and rock than actual dirt, though Iota didn't seem to care that she walked atop it with bare feet. Around them, blackened husks of trees, burnt stumps and jagged pieces of wood, clawed their way up toward the void above.

The air smelled, something harsh that made his hair curl. It was abnormally cold. The ground underfoot became more and more rocky the further they went as the once-trees became sparser-- he could see the mountain ranges in the distance, their peaks jagged and cratered from near-constant bombing runs, and pinpricks of light that had to belong to the Citadel.

“Iota, where are we?” he asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had an inkling, but it couldn't be the--

“The matrons said it used to be the Forests of Prosperity,” Iota told him without looking up, without stopping. “That the trees were so big they blocked out the sun. Have you ever seen a tree?”

He stumbled, mid-step. Even expecting the answer, he still struggled to believe it, but then-- "I. That is." This wasn't a forest, there was hardly any evidence of a forest left behind, and weren't there some distant, long forgotten memories of a family and children running every which way as they played in the woods on the lands of their estate? “Yes. I have. They were.”

A consequence of not being a foot soldier: he never really saw the full extent of the damage done to Gallifrey's surface. Saw the total of it from space, the shining world now a ball of flame, but nothing up close, not like this.

Iota kept pulling him along. He only had to take one step for every two of hers, even though she was all but running-- she was so _small_.

The Wastelands spread out before him, miles upon miles of ships fallen in battle, their collective weight crushing a good portion of the underground chambers that had been intended to be used as shelters in case the Citadel fell. Iota tugged at his arm, and he quickened his pace-- she led them straight up to a mess of scrap piled in a cavern-type shape, the opening which served as an entry low enough even she would need to stoop to get through. There was a toddler sitting in the dirt outside, skin and bones, wearing cobbled-together rags in place of clothes, waving a piece of scrap through the air like any child with their toy planes.

“Viram, has Tianna woken up?” Iota called to him.

The little boy shook his head before he caught sight of the Doctor, and then he was toddling over to greet them, taking Iota's other hand and staring at the Doctor with wide eyes full of amazement.

Heavens, but he had forgotten the stench of war, and he rarely stuck around for the aftermath.

“You live here,” he said hoarsely.

Iota tugged at his hand impatiently, nodding. “She's inside. _Please_.”

“Right. Yes. Yes, it's okay, I promised I'd help. Inside, you said?”

Iota had to duck to get in-- he had to crawl, and the mix of metal and rocky dirt dug into his hands and knees. One whiff of the air inside and he nearly gagged. The shelter opened up some inside, enough that he could walk around if he stooped over, but that was about the only good thing he could say. It was dark and cramped and smoky, no ventilation. The top dome of a Dalek, metal starting to corrode, eyestalk still attached, served as a firepit-- he squinted through the darkness and saw a stack of broken power cells next to it. Highly volatile, highly _flammable_ , but also really Not Good to be breathing in.

The other girl, Iota's sister, Tianna, was curled up near the far back, wrapped in a tattered cloak in place of a blanket. Of the three, she was the best off for clothing; she had the cloak, and a robe meant for someone much smaller to use as a tunic, and a rope tied around her too-thin waist like a belt, and an old pair of pants, and a pair of boots. The soles were peeling off the bottoms. The Doctor slowly knelt, placing his hand on the side of her face, brushing a lock of hair out of the way. Her dark skin was clammy and hot underneath his hand. “Oh, you poor dear,” he whispered.

“Can you help her?” Iota's voice was quiet. “Can you help us?”

Not here, not in this cave. He didn't need his sonic to see the child was sick, though he took a scan anyway-- her immune system was going wild, but that was expected. It could be any number of things-- the water might not be safe to drink, or whatever they had to eat might not have been cleaned properly or cooked all the way. And they had been cooking in the chemicals of old power cells-- it was incredible they had survived this long.

But they had survived. He'd see to it that they would _continue_ to survive. Two and a half billion children on Gallifrey, and he was going to make sure that number didn't get any smaller.

“I told you I had a ship, Iota,” he said, looking back at the other two children. Viram was sitting on the ground, leaning against Iota's leg. The both of them stared back at him with worried eyes. “My TARDIS. I can't help her here, but there's people at the Citadel who can.”

“You'll take us there? You really will?”

She sounded like she didn't believe him, and it hurt to hear-- these children, and two and a half billion other children in the same predicament, they had done nothing to deserve this, _nothing_.

"Promised I would, didn't I?” he answered, holding out his hand. “You can trust me.”

* * *

The Doctor wrapped Tianna in his coat and scooped her up into his arms, carrying her as gently as he possibly could, twisting around a bit to get her out of the den without knocking her head against the walls or the edges of the entrance. Viram shuffled around until he found a specific piece of scrap, holding it close, and Iota knelt so she could carry him on her back, and they began to hurry through the former forests as quickly as they could manage. The air got harder to breathe the longer he stayed out in it, but he pushed the burning feeling out of mind.

“What's your name?”

Iota's question startled him, and he spared her a quick glance. “I'm the Doctor. Didn't I say that?”

“Yes.” She was frowning at him, but it was a much too serious expression to be on such a small child. “But that's a _job_ , and real names are a secret, but you have to have a _name_ , don't you?”

Maybe it was the vague giddy feeling of being on his home planet again for the first time in-- in a very long time-- or maybe he was just still reeling from everything that had happened in the past half-hour, the smoggy air still clogging his throat, Tianna's frail body too light in his arms-- but he wasn't sure how to answer. He knew what she _meant_ , true names were something only shared between family members and spouses, but--

“Theta,” he said at long last, the name feeling more out of place on his lips than the Gallifreyan did. The TARDIS was coming into sight through the gloom. How long had it been since someone had called him by _that_ name? “You can call me Theta.”

His answer seemed to satisfy her, and her frown gave way into a smile, relieved and bright and impossibly cheerful in the midst of what most would call hell. The TARDIS doors opened without any prompting, and the Doctor murmured his thanks to the old ship as he turned to walk sideways through the doors, infinitely careful not to bump Tianna against anything. The two other children didn't bat an eyelash at the bigger-on-the-inside box, and for a brief moment he found himself disappointed at the lack of reaction, and _then_ he really could have slapped himself, because if the Time Lords had ever been so inclined, they could have gone ahead and made the entire _planet_ bigger on the inside. The shelters had been bigger on the inside to fit more refugees in. This wasn't anything new to them.

The idea of putting Tianna down on the cold glass alloy floor of the TARDIS console room made his stomach roll, so he nodded for Iota to come over.

“Pull that lever for me, will you?” he asked gently, shuffling around until he got to the pilot's bench, wide and soft and large enough that he could put the child in his arms there without worrying about her falling off. He only needed one hand to input coordinates, but he needed both to hold her.

Iota stood back and looked at the wide array of controls, then shifted Viram up to sit on top of her shoulders. The little boy handed her his scrap, grabbed the lever in question with both hands, and tugged.

Miraculously steady, the ship entered flight, the time rotor grinding up and down as the engines creaked and groaned to life. The noise never failed to make his hearts soar. Now, if they were _lucky_ , if the old girl cooperated, they _should_ land in an old storage closet in the Citadel, near the medical rooms, and he could bring the children there before finding wherever the High Command was meeting. _Ugh_ , politics-- but that noise! He turned to smile at the children. Iota and Viram watched with wide eyes, the girl looking torn between awe and terror.

“It's okay,” he reassured them, twisting to pull another lever, the floor rattling only slightly under their feet “It's just the noise that the engine makes. She's a very old TARDIS, but very reliable.”

Viram patted Iota's head to get her attention and pointed at the Gallifreyan symbols lining the rotating circles above the console. She squinted up at them.

“Are those names, Mister Theta?” she asked him.

That was a question best left for another time, as many questions were.

“Come on, you two,” he said, the engines signifying their landing with a low _thud_. “We're here.”

* * *

Romana was presiding over yet another meeting, High Command and the War Council both in attendance. The War Council had of course been disbanded as they were no longer actually at war, but they _were_ a branch of High Command, and they gave decent advice, and with the High Council gone, she needed all the minds she could get. They had convened in what was essentially a closet; the large hall had once been used for formal, banquet-type occasions back when they had the luxury for that sort of thing, and then converted into storage, and then forgotten about in the chaos of the War. It was structurally sound, however, which was more than could be said for most of their actual meeting halls, and she could name a few attendees who could do to be humbled by meeting in such an undignified spot.

Heavens, but there was still so much to do.

“My Lady President.”

She greeted each formality with the proper response, all the proper hellos directed at Lords and Ladies and inclining her head in the presidential equivalent of a bow, her mind already beginning to drift, trying to work through half a dozen tasks. She was starting to think that perhaps the reason the Time Lords had settled to observe and never interfere was because they didn't have _time_ for anything else around all the pointless formalities.

When everyone was seated around the table, Romana stood from her place at the head of it. The room quieted obediently. _Good_. Some part of her was beginning to doubt they'd ever stop talking.

“I have convened this meeting to inform you that while Gallifrey has been saved from the War, our current predicament is going to be long-term. It has been shown that we cannot leave the planet after a few hundred miles beyond the outer atmosphere, and the climate is significantly different from anything we have known, both during the War and before it. We are not a race known for our ability to adapt.”

Romana's tone turned wry, and she got a few bitter smiles. That was an understatement, if one had ever been spoken.

“However, now, we _must_ adapt. We must discard tradition and thoughts of war, for our primary goal is survival. We are isolated. We cannot count on a hero in gilded armor to come and rescue us. We cannot expect our return, when it comes, to be heralded with trumpets and fanfare. This journey will be long, and it will not be easy, but I believe if we work together, if we listen and cooperate, it may perhaps go more smoothly.”

Silence followed her brief speech, and Romana allowed a hint of her old pride to bloom behind her mental shields. Silence meant that they were thinking. Silence meant they were _listening_.

“To begin: we have a population totaling four billion, the more than half of whom are children. The majority have no place to sleep, to live safely. The Citadel is the last city standing, though I use the word _standing_ quite loosely, as it seems likely to collapse in on itself. Structural damage must be assessed and repaired. The terraforming process is slow, and much of the planet's natural resources are depleted. We are alone." 

She took a slow breath.

"Considering the sheer scope of problems which need to be addressed, I am more than open to any suggestions or ideas you wish to present.”

It was Androgar who spoke up first; the young man had handled the sudden extra responsibilities pressed onto him with ease, and he had grown much more comfortable voicing opinions around his superiors. “If I may, I have been considering--”

A gust of air blew threw the room, though all the windows had been repaired well before the meeting began, tugging at the fabric of their robes and sending a few styluses rolling across the table. Romana stiffened, fingers curling into a fist at her side. Androgar's mouth shut with an audible _click_.

A second gust came, this one more powerful, accompanied by the distant groaning of engines.

“But that's a TARDIS,” she overheard. “All TARDISes were grounded after the lockdown.”

The noise became louder, and the speed of the wind continued to increase, and finally, at the oppsite end of the room from their long table, not too far behind Romana's chair, the faint outline of a blue box shivered into being. With each grating creak of engines, as the box became more and more solid, the air in the place it would ultimately land was pushed out in a breeze; the color came back stronger and stronger, repeating the materialization process until it solidified with a  _thud_ , and the engines powered down to a low hum.

“ _He_ saved us?” someone blurted.

Androgar looked rather dazed, but then again, he had always held a good deal of admiration for the Doctor. The General looked more like he had swallowed a particularly sour fruit.

Romana felt some weight lift off of her shoulders.

She stood from her seat and walked around so she was standing behind her chair, facing the doors of the Doctor's TARDIS, waiting for them to open. It had been-- too long, really, since she had seen her friend, and she wondered if she would recognize him, or if he would recognize her. She had helped him into the Omega Arsenal to steal the Moment, but that hand been done through cryptic messages. The fewer things Rassilon could trace, the better, and that included both video transmissions and face-to-face meetings. But he'd always had a very distinctive presence, the Doctor, so though she doubted she would know his face, she would know his mind, thoughts skirting out from behind his mental shields almost constantly.

A man with pale skin and a mop of brown hair streaked with gray poked his head out, frowned, and shook his head. “No, this wasn't where I intended to land at all.”

Her facade cracked; she stared at him, blatant. “...Pardon?”

“Wait, no. No, no, no, yes. I _did_ mean to land on Gallifrey--” His voice cracked on the name of his planet. “--yes, but I was aiming for more of a storage closet? Supposed to be empty, storage closets.”

Silence met his words. The Doctor looked around and made a face, at the columns and the windows and the dusty corners. “This _is_ a storage closet, isn't it? You're meeting in a _storage closet_. Hm. Well. Anyway, hello... um.” His eyes flicked over Romana's face without recognition, and then to the heavy robes and ornate collar and the symbols she wore. “...presidential robes, those are presidential robes. Those are presidential robes, oh, _dear_ , you're Lady President. _Hello_ , Lady President, lovely to meet you, could you point me in the direction of the medical wing? I'd love to stay and chat, but I accidentally took a detour, you see, wound up near what's left of the Forests of Prosperity, and there's these three children who need some help...”

His thoughts were all over the place, his words chaotic; Romana almost wanted to smile, though it was wholly inappropriate to the situation at hand. War had changed them all, but some things, at least, seemed to remain constant.

She looked behind him and saw a rounded console, all soft light and shades of blue and silver. There were a few figures on the far side, looking very small in the open room. They'd have looked smaller under the burning skies, all alone.

“My Lord General,” she said, turning slightly. “Oversee the meeting until my return. Lieutenant, alert the physicians of three new arrivals. Doctor, you may follow me; should you try to land your TARDIS in the medical sector, you'll most likely crush someone.”

She was Lady President, and the words of the Lady President did not go ignored. It was interesting how willing they were to grumble at her, however, while when Rassilon was Lord President they had all been conspicuously silent.

Fast as ever, the Doctor slipped back into his TARDIS, picked up one of the children to carry in his arms, and hurried back out. The other two followed him, and he followed Romana, and they moved quickly through the hallways, taking the occasional detour to bypass the areas still open to the surface, covered in debris and shattered glass.

“Medical _sector_?” he asked after a period of silence.

Romana nodded once. “Approximately one-sixth of the Citadel is providing medical attention to those who need it.”

 _One-sixth_ , came a stray thought, disbelief so powerful that she nearly stumbled from the force of it. He'd been better at keeping them on lockdown during the War, but depending on how long it had been, she supposed he could be out of habit.

She spared a glance at the children; the one in his arms, limp and motionless, and the two hurrying alongside, a little girl carrying a toddler though she herself was little more than skin and bone. The youngest held tight to some scrap, warped and bent into a crudely-shaped kind of spaceship. “Where did you say you found them?”

At the question about them, the younger girl looked up, found Romana watching at her-- looked back curiously, instead of ducking her head out of shyness.

“Forests of Prosperity, near the Wastelands. No bomb shelters nearby.” He looked sad, though the expression did little justice to the turmoil in his mind. She'd need to tell him to better keep his mind protected before they got back-- “I'm sorry, this doesn't feel like politician-y behavior and I'm very confused, what's your name? I was expecting a murder attempt from Rassilon.”

Oh, blunt as always.

“I'm beginning to think that I was born and named Lady President, for all their reluctance to dispense with formalities and call me by my name. It's Romana, Doctor.”

He stumbled in his shock, and the emotion rippling outward from his mind nearly caused her to trip-- the two children trailing after him flinched.

“ _Romana_?”

“The High Council failed in their plans, my dear Doctor. Rassilon is dead.” He nodded slowly at that. “Quickly, now, the physicians we have are already overworked, they tend to get irritated even if I happen to be the one keeping them waiting. Later, we will have time to talk.”

He nodded again, still looking at her like he couldn't quite believe it was _her_ , a near-unfathomable depth of emotion in his eyes she couldn't even begin to decipher. “Of course,” he said faintly, and quickened his pace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading, and comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heck of a lot of dialogue in this one, but someone gets mentioned whom you might not be expecting....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter stands to commemorate my enrollment in college for the 2017-2018 school year!!
> 
>  
> 
> Onto more relevant things, the next chapter is really really short, so I'm going to be posting it this Wednesday instead of Saturday, and the chapter after it will come a Saturday early. Two chapters in the space of a week! Exciting (I hope?).
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: none

The Time Lords in the medical sector were intrigued by the man in the strange clothes, a fashion and color utterly alien to them, who had brought the children in; Gallifrey was under lockdown, after all, so no strangers could possibly have come in, despite there being evidence to the contrary in the form of the man. They were even more intrigued by the presence of the Lady President at his side, the two of them standing perhaps a bit closer than political tradition called for and talking in quiet tones.

But it was not their place to question, so question they did not.

The Doctor, meanwhile, wasn't listening to Romana. He could potentially get away with the claim that he had been half-listening, but... well.

There were ten Gallifreyans in front of him, including the three children. At his side was one of his many dear friends, standing tall and proud in the aftermath of the War, ascended to the position of _Lady President_ , of all things. And when he had landed the TARDIS (in a customarily spectacular fashion, though he hadn't _meant_ to make an entrance this time, honest), he had interrupted a meeting of more than _thirty_.

He had seen the orange tinge to the sky, past the darkened filter of the endless void beyond it. In the Forests of Prosperity, he had seen trees slowly dredging themselves back into life. He had hurried through fields of blackened ground. He was standing inside the Citadel of the Time Lords. He was on _Gallifrey_.

“Doctor.”

He blinked, focusing in on Romana. She was looking at him with a blank, unnerving sort of stare. Very politician-y of her. “Sorry. Um. Yes?”

The stare gave way for an expression tinged with amusement, maybe exasperation-- “Still absent-minded as ever.”

“No. Well, _yes_ , but right now, it's just-- I'm _here_. I'm here, Romana, and I didn't think I'd ever be here again.”

He looked at her earnestly-- she could see traces of her old friend: his odd sense of fashion, the undercurrent of energy in every action, the restlessness he could never seem to keep down. Still, he seemed older, more tired, and it was plainly obvious in those few words.

He looked much like herself, someone who didn't dare to hope, after everything.

“I understand, my dear Doctor,” she said. She didn't reach out to touch his shoulder, or offer a smile, not while she was still in the robes of the President; tradition would not allow for it, and she was pushing boundaries enough as it was by accompanying him here. Some leeway was allowed, given the circumstances, given that it was the _Doctor_ , but she could not afford to lose any political ground, not now. Still, she allowed her shields to crack open just a fraction, brushing her mind against his in reassurance. “None of us thought we would be here, either; the War is less than a year away, and there are days when I wake up and think it never left. I cannot imagine, knowing your home was missing for...”

Romana trailed off after a moment, realizing that she had no way to know how long it had been for him-- how long had he looked? She didn't recognize his face, but the weight he seemed to carry on his shoulders was familiar. She herself carried Gallifrey on her back, trying desperately to keep it from crumbling.

The Doctor's lips curved in a facade of a smile. He looked down toward the floor, then up to where the children were. Iota clung to the younger child, stubbornly refusing to move until the oldest of the three was looked at. “Would it be terribly insulting if I told you that I don't remember?” he asked softly.

Outwardly, her response was a blink, but inwardly she was reeling, too shocked to be angry or upset, but not for long. How could one not know how long one's home has been missing-- and the way that he had _said_ it, faux-casual, the upward quirk of his lips and no humor to accompany it--

“I've been telling people I meet that I'm twelve hundred years old.” He kept speaking without waiting for a response. “Earth time, you know-- the TARDIS is synced up to that. I just tack on a year every time I move forward a year there, give or take. But I don't remember, Romana, do you understand? I'm old enough I can't remember when I'm lying about my age. It could have been five hundred years since my ninth incarnation stole the Moment, and it could have been one hundred since all thirteen of us pulled Gallifrey here, but I don't _remember_ , Romana, and the Daleks--!”

He cut himself off before he could start talking too loudly and lowered his voice, taking a couple of slow breaths. Romana let him take his time. Heaven only knew what he was feeling right now; they all needed several decades of calm and quiet and rest, but they weren't going to get it, so giving one another a moment to breathe, to vent, was the next best option.

“They keep coming back, Romana,” he whispered, and her blood went cold. “I destroyed everything I ever knew to save the universe, and they keep coming _back_. I always had home, Romana, even when I'd been exiled, it was still here! And then you helped me steal the Moment, and I forgot what I'd tried to do when three of myselfs came to use it. Timelines, and all. I spent so long thinking my home had burned at my hands, and the Daleks weren't even _gone_.”

She looked to the medics, all of whom were preoccupied with their patients, professional as ever and steadfastly ignoring both Lady President and mysterious stranger. “You have done far more than anyone ever gives you credit for, old friend,” Romana told him, and briefly squeezed his hand. He looked at her, startled. “And you are far stronger than anyone ever gives you credit for, for all that we demand the impossible. You have saved our planet, despite sacrifices made.” Quieter, then: “You saved those children.”

The oldest child was being hurried away; the younger two were brought in the same direction, though with less urgency. They were starving, those children, filthy and scrappy and clinging to life, but they _survived_.

Iota turned to look at them before she disappeared from sight; she waved, almost shyly, and Romana found herself lifting a hand in farewell.

“Do you remember when we first met, Romana?” he asked, and she was willing to indulge the question, though they really did need to hurry back.

“Yes. You had that hair, and the awful scarf, and neither of us liked each other, and you refused to call me by any name other than Fred.”

His smile was small, but at least this time it was real. “How young we were!”

* * *

With the children safe, both Doctor and President began the long trek back to the closet-turned-meeting room. Romana kept their pace brisk; the journey was made in silence. She was bursting with questions, and she could hear the buzz of his mind hovering around her thoughts, but those could wait. Explanations could be given when everyone was present, so as to avoid excess repetition. For once, the Time Lords had little time at their leisure. Every second counted.

By the time she thought to warn him, to tell him to strengthen the walls in his head, he had already bounded ahead to push the doors open for her. However long it had been since he had needed to shield his mind, she didn't know, but the buzz fluctuated in volume; his thoughts were simmering just out of reach, and while she respected her friend and would not pry, he was projecting enough that there were others who would have no qualms about it. The rules had been broken more than once, in the War, and there were Time Lords in that room who would not hesitate to break them again. Heavens, but she was exhausted keeping everything and everyone in line.

He stood to the side, leaving her enough room to walk past, and respectfully waited until she was a few steps ahead to follow her. Contrary to what some might say, he was occasionally capable of tact. Romana's gaze flicked to the General, an unspoken _all clear_ passing between them, and stood at the head of the long table. After a pause, she gestured at the space to her right with a pointed look to the Doctor, and sat.

The rest of the table followed suit, sitting only after she had settled herself. More than a few had gone still, expressions carefully blank, or just barely concealing annoyance. Traditionally, the one who took the seat at the right of the head was the second-most important person in the room; the General had the seat to her right, and the Doctor did not have a chair, but having her old friend stand at her right conveyed his status and his relation to her quite nicely.

The Doctor was under her protection. It was best to make that clear at get it out of the way instead of squabbling over it, so they could move along to more important matters.

Blinking, surprised, he walked to Romana's side, his footsteps echoing in the quiet room. The Time Lords assembled watched him carefully, critically, although a small number cast glances back to the TARDIS parked behind them. Its doors were still open, letting a faint, pale, blue-white glow spill out onto the tarnished floors, allowing a glimpse of a silver console inside and contrasting greatly with both the low lighting in the room and the dark blue of the time capsule's exterior. The hum of engines was hardly perceptible but present all the same, a gentle kind of noise.

“Oh, pardon-- didn't mean to leave the doors open.” Perhaps he was flustered, or perhaps he was simply talking to fill the silence. The Doctor scratched the back of his neck, looking between the table and the doors, shifting on his feet, never quite standing still. “She doesn't like it when I do that. Bunch of jungle rodents got in one time, made nests in the circuitry...”

“Her?” asked someone from further down the table.

“Yes, yes, the TARDIS...” He snapped his fingers, nodding in approval when the doors swung shut, seemingly oblivious to the surprised looks his action garnered. Continued to shift on his feet, rocking back and forth. “Gets all huffy with me. Moves the rooms around, sometimes.”

Another dissenting voice, “It's a time capsule, it isn't _sentient_ , nor does it have gender.”

“Actually, Admiral, there were studies once that showed certain pilots--”

Romana cast her gaze toward the ceiling, high, high above them.

“Gathered Lords, Ladies, noble Gallifreyans, may we _kindly_ return to more pressing matters?”

The room quieted. _Good_.

“Now that such lines of conversation are available to pursue, I believe it more important to discover what, exactly, has happened on the other side of the wall which separates us from the universe. We know that which has occurred planetside, but nothing of that which has occurred in the time spent here, nor how long has passed outside of here. As for the Lord Doctor, he knows nothing of how the planet fares, and it would be in the best interests of everyone present to gain a full understanding of the entire situation. My Lord General, if you will.”

“My Lady President.” The General stood, offering a curt bow to them both, noticeably less stiff to Romana than to the Doctor. She let it slide. “Lord Doctor. As most of us are aware, the device known as the Moment was-- removed-- from the Omega Arsenal on the last day of the War, several hours after High Command lost contact with the late Lord Rassilon and the High Council. It was believed that the Lord Doctor intended to utilize the weapon, obliterating all contained within the Time Lock, both Time Lords and Daleks alike.”

The Doctor's face had turned to a neutral mask, but Romana could still feel his thoughts just out of reach and growing more turbulent, drifting through the air like vapor trails. Muttering broke out across the assembled group.

The General cleared his throat. “In comparison to the late Lord Rassilon's decision to implement the Final Sanction-- as all are aware, it was a plan of unknown content, purportedly meant to save the planet, introduced by the late Lord Rassilon and passed by the Senate in the last days, but if carried out, the entirety of the universe would have been destroyed in order for a few select Time Lords to ascend to mere consciousness in the Void-- this plan was the... preferable one.”

The muttering stopped. The General continued, looking at the Doctor.

“My information regarding the methods which brought Gallifrey to its current position is scarce, Lord Doctor. Thirteen of your incarnations shifted the planet into a parallel pocket universe, something which is barely possible in theory, much less in actuality.”

The Doctor shifted a bit. The blank neutrality had dropped away into something more open, honest. His voice was quiet in the large room. “Well. It's been five hundred years since I _\--_ since I _removed_ the Moment from the Vaults.” The General's wording had not been lost on him, nor on Romana. 'Borrowed' was a far safer term than 'stolen' or 'committed treason by taking.' “One hundred, thereabouts, since I joined with two of my past incarnations to save Gallifrey, the majority of which were spent searching for information to bring the planet back. In theory, it's entirely possible to do, but you need the proper set of equations, see, and finding one universe out of an infinite number is nigh on impossible.”

“But why did you not begin looking sooner?” someone shouted out.

“Crossing over one's own timeline corrupts the memory,” he responded promptly, clapping his hands together with a nervous air. “I was the most future incarnation, saving for a brief appearance from the one after me, so I was the only one to retain memories of the event. The version of me which fought during the War regenerated with the belief that he had survived the use of the Moment, and it was centuries between him and me, now, here.”

He glanced around the room, at the General, at Romana, back toward his TARDIS. He waved a bit with his hands. He rocked back and forth on his heels.

“She needs some time to repair herself,” he said, gesturing to the time capsule, “since this wasn't an easy journey, but most of the information needed to return Gallifrey to her rightful place in the stars is in there, on the monitors. Provided that the planetary defense systems are in working order! And the transduction barrier. Been centuries, and there are plenty who would dismiss the legends of the Lords of Time as legends, assume the planet is ripe for the picking...”

“Gallifrey is still rebuilding.” The General shook his head. “It will be some time before we could call ourselves safe. Nevertheless...”

Romana nodded slowly. She could, maybe, begin to allow herself to hope. “Nevertheless, we have a goal, and the means to work towards it,” she said. “Now. Moving to the matter of planetary reforms...”

* * *

The TARDIS stayed in the meeting room, though the Doctor had moved it to a less prominent corner. He was going to need to be present at the majority of them, so it seemed pointless to make the journey between his ship and the meeting room any longer than it needed to be. Romana gently ran her hand over the familiar blue wood of the front doors, raising an eyebrow ever so slightly at the scorch marks across it, but pushed them open and stepped inside, the General just a step behind her. The engines seemed to hum a bit louder at their entrance.

The circular Gallifreyan was the first thing to catch her eye as she cast her gaze about the room, checking to see if her old friend was present. Thick paneled circles, three stacked atop one another, each one larger than the one beneath it, wrapped around the time rotor in the center of the room, and each panel was inscribed with the familiar writing. Were they names?

Careful not to trip over her robes, she walked up the stairs and started circling around the glass floor, looking up. Yes, yes, they were-- she could see her own engraved with dozens of others.

The second thing to catch her eye were the various tools that had been substituted for controls, but she had to assume that they worked, no matter how unsafe they seemed. The Doctor had been flying his ship for close to a thousand years, now, and it hadn't crashed yet.

At least, not to her knowledge.

“My Lady President...” The General shifted uncomfortably; he hadn't stepped away from the doors, which remained open behind him. Romana turned to look at him. “He doesn't appear to be here. Perhaps it would be better to return another time?”

The General had a message he intended to deliver. Romana simply wished to speak to her old friend in a rare moment of free time. Their paths happened to converge as they walked to the destination that they shared.

“Perhaps,” she agreed, and walked back down the stairs. If she wasn't speaking to her friend, maybe she could take a nap. Five minutes, standing. She'd earned that much.

“Hel _lo_ , old girl!” came a familiar shout. She startled, turned, opening her mouth to scold the Doctor-- if he could see her, he could see the General, and even if it had only been the two of them, it was hardly the way one should address the _current_ _President_ \-- but the Doctor didn't seem to notice them, rushing out from one of many hallways that led deeper into the ship, arms full of cables. The glimpse she caught of him showed his sleeves pushed back, his arms streaked with grease and oil, a pair of goggles on his head. “Sorry that took me so long! Got distracted in the storage room, you know how it gets. Or, well-- maybe you don't! _I_ wouldn't know. Not like we can talk face to face again.”

He ducked down underneath the console, oblivious to the presence of the two standing at his front door. “Now! What's the problem, this time around? I know the regulator's gone wonky again, but those engines of yours didn't sound right, either...”

The floor of the TARDIS shook suddenly underneath them, and the engines in question made a low kind of sound. A light in one of the roundels faded slowly in and out, and some chimes rang out from the console. The Doctor just laughed.

“Yes, yes! What can I say, I'm an overprotective sort of person. Or was that in response to a question I haven't asked yet? Or does one of the lights just have a lose wire...? Hey, hey, are you glad to be back home again, dear? I know there aren't many TARDISes around, after everything, but not many is way more than zero, eh?”

The console chimed again, and the Doctor laughed again, and Romana became acutely aware that she was trespassing on a private moment. There were no secrets being spilled, no deep, emotional confessions, but this was the Doctor when he felt he was alone, the Doctor with his guards down, the Doctor being open to someone he trusted, no matter if that someone was but a time capsule.

The General took a single step back, so he was outside the threshold of the console room, outside the doors, and caught her eye. Romana nodded slowly, and the General bowed and moved silently away. If the Doctor suspected someone had overheard more than they were letting on, he would be more comfortable with that someone being a friend than a stranger who had made their dislike for him clear on more than one occasion.

She rapped her knuckles against the wood of the doorframe. “Doctor?”

“Romana!” he cried, excited. “Hello! I didn't hear you knock! I'm down under the console, just started some repairs, if you wouldn't mind...?”

“Hardly, my dear Doctor.” She shut the doors behind her, walked down to the lower levels, and settled on the lowest step on the stairs. She still wore the presidential robes and collar, and the latter of the two curved high enough up over of her head that she wouldn't be able to comfortably join him underneath the console. The Doctor cast her a distracted kind of smile, still wearing the goggles-- he sat in a kind of sling hooked up to the support beams where he could easily reach the wires and circuitry he needed to; there was a tool box by his feet, and the cables he had carried in were in a pile on the floor.

“So-- a social visit from the Lady President? I'm flattered!"

“An old friend,” she corrected, “stopping in to check on you. I'm not here to pester you, Doctor, and I'm not here to pry. If you wish to speak to me of anything, speak when you are comfortable, and only then.” He yanked a couple of cables out, tossing them to the side and reaching for one of the new ones, ignoring the sparks that burst out at his actions. Romana made a mental note to get some proper mechanics and supplies for him, when Gallifrey could spare them. “Although the General expressed his wishes that I send someone to request that you retrieve the Moment so that it might be returned to the Vaults. As I was already planning on seeing you, I told him I would deliver the message myself."

He paused in his tinkering. “A weapon that powerful, you're just going to stick it back in a box for safekeeping?”

There was something odd in his tone, and Romana took a fraction of a second to consider-- her friend, older and sadder-- perhaps there were a few more changes that she had initially noted. The politics of the War had been nigh-on impossible to navigate, when they existed at all; she knew that tone of voice, and she knew that he was testing her, but she couldn't quite parse out _why_.

“Would you rather see it destroyed?” she replied.

“Well, most would consider it the safer option.”

“We are in a pocket universe, where the laws of physics only _sometimes_ apply. Even if I thought it was possible, we could not afford to.”

“Hm.” He opened up a large panel, pulling out a few of the wires from the tangle that was exposed. “True, a weapon that powerful, probably wouldn't go easily.”

“No,” she agreed, careful.

“All right!” Switching tracks abruptly, he was smiling again, nodding absently as he resumed his repairs. Romana blinked, thrown-- centuries of maneuvering through Gallifrey's politics, and this one man was still able to catch her off guard. “There wasn't a soul for miles, where I was, so it should still be where I left it. Can head out as soon as these repairs are done, don't want to go anywhere with the engines like this...” Something grated, a scrape of metal on metal from low in the ship. The Doctor winced and patted the central column underneath the console. “Not that I think you aren't capable, love! But you'll be more comfortable if I fix things up right.” There was another grating noise, but quieter than the first.

“And, perhaps,” Romana continued slowly, choosing not to comment, “when you get back, you might join me at the harbor. We've a fleet of rescue TARDISes returning within the week's end.”

“I thought Gallifrey's population was centered in the Citadel?” He frowned, plugging a cable in amidst more sparks. Something puffed out a cloud of black smoke, and he coughed, flapping his hands to clear it. She added a couple of underlines to her mental note, some extra emphasis.

“The battle TARDIS _Pandora_ was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after the Fall of Arcadia,” she explained. “It wound up crashing in the Firefields, some distance away from Mount Perdition, the only surviving landmark.”

“Pandora, terrible name for a ship. Lots of nasty things inside Pandora's box. Why are you telling me this?”

“If you would let me _finish_ , old friend.” She raised an eyebrow. He smiled, a touch apologetically. “The Admiral Arkytior commanded the first fleet to send aid to Arcadia, though it had fallen before anyone could reach it. _Pandora_ was her flagship. From the reports we have, it's likely her actions in the aftermath ensured the survival of her entire crew.”

The multitool in the Doctor's hands fell to the floor with a clatter, and he fumbled to push his goggles away from his face. “She--?”

“Yes,” Romana said simply. When he didn't move, didn't say anything else, just continued to stare at her, she sighed and hefted the collar away from her shoulders. Setting it gently on the floor, she shuffled over to sit next to him, on one of the lower support struts, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Well. Yes. I. I'll be there.” He nodded jerkily. “I'll be-- I'll be there.”

“I'll make sure to send someone when we get word of their approach.”

“I-- thank you.”

She bent over to pick up the multitool, passed it over to him. He took it without a word and plugged in a second cable.

“You are most welcome, my dear Doctor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentioned in a short story, Susan Foreman -- the Doctor's first companion and granddaughter -- had the Gallifreyan name of Arkytior.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, and comments and kudos are very much appreciated! Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the Master.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: very very mild self-harm, can be read as unintentional

Not knowing where he was left him feeling-- exposed, maybe, off-kilter, disoriented, but he found that it was easier to simply let his mind drift where it would. He could ignore the strange silence and the terrifying blankness which his memory had left him with; time was no matter to him, not when he could draw further in on himself and pretend that nothing outside of him existed.

If he kept his hands pressed over his ears, he could hear a distant thudding, the echo of his heartsbeat. It was better than the silence, closing like iron around his lungs, pressing down atop dual hearts.

Sometimes, when he came back out from his head, there was a woman in white. She talked, sometimes, though the words made no sense, but he clung to the sounds all the same. Her voice kept away the silence better than his own hearts. The more she spoke, the more he got the feeling that she knew him, and an equally strange feeling that he knew _her_ \-- but the blankness remained, and the more he tried to focus the more the world hurt, so he stopped.

“Do eat, Koschei,” the woman murmured to him, words drifting through the hazy fog of his own creation. His hands loosened slightly from the death grip over his ears, more in surprise when anything else, once the words registered and he managed to parse their meaning. “Please, won't you eat?”

Something told him that he shouldn't be allowed to eat. Something else told him that he could and should do what he pleased, damn the consequences. The hollows of his mind remained barren and empty.

What had she said?

Koschei-- a name? _His_ name? It felt like maybe, perhaps, but-- no, no, that was wrong-- it wasn't-- _he_ wasn't--

Wasn't he? And yet--

And yet--

“That isn't my name,” rasped a voice, harsh, rough from disuse. It took a few moments to place it as his own. It took longer to realize that he was trying to sound threatening for a reason he couldn't remember, to realize that his throat hurt, that his lips were dry and cracked. “Don't call me that. It isn't my name.”

The woman didn't speak for some time; he wasn't sure how long, he didn't know, time didn't register for him like he felt it should. His fingers curled back around his ears, nails digging into the skin. If she was upset with him and left, then there wouldn't be anyone to talk to him, and the silence would come back, and he couldn't bear it, couldn't--

“It isn't?” The woman's voice was mild. She was continuing the conversation. It hadn't been long at all.

She reached out to touch his shoulder, and he shied away.

“Tell me then, my dear boy, what is your name?”

And therein lay the problem. He couldn't remember, he couldn't remember, and it was just snippets, and it _hurt_ \--

It could have been minutes or hours later, he still wasn't sure, but she placed a hand on his shoulder. He was too focused on not shaking to pull away.

* * *

The woman wasn't here today. The silence was louder than it normally was. Clamping his hands over his ears didn't seem to help.

Something clawed at his stomach.

Was he hungry? It had been a long time since he had thought about food. Criminals ate too, he supposed. Whatever he had done, if he had done anything at all, couldn't be enough to discourage him of that.

He blinked a few times, and the world came into focus. There was a window with the curtains pulled back, showing a sunless, starless sky and the edge of a dome curving over the city, jagged and sharp. It reminded him of another place he had been, even as he instinctually recoiled at the thought of a time and place where even the stars had burned out. The viewpanels on the ceiling glowed dimly.

His head ached. It lessened when he pulled his hands from his ears. His fingers were stiff; there was blood underneath his nails.

No broth on the table, no woman in the chair.

It took some several tries to stand, more than it should have. He glared at nothing in particular and kept struggling at it until he had his legs underneath him and could take a few shaky steps across the room. His robes were a dark red, hanging off of his frame. This regeneration wasn't supposed to be so thin.

 _Regeneration_.

The word came out from the emptiness of his thoughts, sudden, foreign yet familiar. Gold, pain, rebirth.

He turned from the door back to the window. Gallifrey's skies were orange, not this mud-brown-- the sun, the skies, the stars--? The city looked ready to crumble.

This was Gallifrey?

Gallifrey was--

_How can Gallifrey be gone?_

_It burnt_.

An abrupt turn back towards the door-- he found himself seized by a sudden agitation, a need to move, a need to know-- voices, voices, he _knew_ those voices.

Gallifrey had burned, but it clearly wasn't gone.

Those voices--

Back to the window, then, frowning at the shell of the Citadel and the burning wastelands he could see beyond it, then back to the door-- pausing, before he could complete the turn, taking a moment to study the table.

Pictures were just another form of Time Lord art, bigger on the inside, a snippet of time taken out of reality. He picked this one up to study it with shaking hands-- his fingers were bone-thin, long and spindly, cold. It was old. Burned, scorched, charred, creased from where it had been folded and tucked into a pocket. Two little boys, red school robes, sandy blond hair and dark hair and an estate on the mountainside underneath the shade of massive silver trees--

_Can't catch me! Can't catch me!_

His legs gave; he sat on the bed with a heavy thud, frowning so much that his head hurt again, touching the surface of the picture-- the boy on the left, then the boy on the right, laughing as they darted about.

 _Theta_.

Which one was--

_And we can fly away in our TARDISes and--_

\--Theta?

_Can't you hear it, Doctor? The drums, the never-ending drums--_

_So hot, fat, grease, blood--_

Get out of the way.

_Here come the drums--_

_The Master race--_

Get out of the way.

_End of the universe, have fun, bye-bye~!_

Get out of the--

_youdidthistomeallofmylife_

Get out of the way--

_One._

Get out--

_Two._

_allofmylifeyoudidthistomeallofmylifeyoudidthisyoudidthis_

_Three_.

And the Master, staring at the picture clutched tight in his hands, remembered.

_**Four.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So you know how things have just been worldbuilding up until now (both in the writing sense and the literal sense)? It's about time for some Drama and Emotions, don't you think?
> 
> Also, have you ever _really_ considered the sheer scope of the Moment's power?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: none

The TARDIS was parked miles away from where the cabin was; the Doctor could not see the Citadel, nor Solace, nor Solitude, just the battered outcropping that used to be Mount Lung, and endless sand and charred earth. The fires had stopped, here, but the air still burned in his lungs, making him feel the urge to cough. His eyes watered.

Nevertheless, he walked, thinking of the last time he had made this journey. He hadn't intended to survive, then.

The Moment had been unattended for a considerable time, left to the elements and exposed to planetary bombardment. He worried disruptions from the TARDIS landing would mess with the weapon, and considering he still didn't understand how the device worked, he _really_ didn't want to push his luck. Quite frankly, he was amazed that the weapon was still here, after everything, though this portion of Gallifrey was long-dead.

The Gallifrey which he remembered was flowing crimson grass, and silver trees stretching out as far as the eye could see, and burnt orange skies that lightened to a pale yellow at dawn, and a night full of stars and nebulas and Pazithi Gallifreya glowing as bright as the first sun all framed against a deep copper backdrop. Gallifrey now, after the War, was little more than a shell, black and molten and dying and hazy, red-brown skies.

One hundred _years_ of searching, give or take! The Doctor allowed himself a shaky sigh, though it quickly degenerated into a coughing fit. The skies had started to clear, but smoke and smog hung heavy. His lungs burned. One hundred years – probably, _probably_ , for as he said to Romana, he honestly didn't know – of poring through book after book after book, only a brief adventure or twenty with Clara when he couldn't see straight from all the words and information. One hundred years of nothing but focused, concentrated effort, and it had _finally_ paid off.

Mount Lung didn't look like it had, reshaped by explosions and battles, and his house was long-gone, but it was there. The shattered remains of the Citadel were in the west; the rubble of Arcadia to the north. He was here! After a whole century!

And mere months for them, so it seemed. Not quite a standard year. There always was the possibility of him arriving just a few seconds after the planet was moved, or a few centuries, but he had hoped it might have been later. He didn't think he could cope if he were to make it here, only to see Gallifrey die slowly rather than all at once, unable to come back from the horrors which the War had unleashed.

Ah, but he was _home_.

He should probably tell people about that. Old friends, old faces-- he had to tell them, had to spread the news! Clara, he definitely had to tell Clara first. She was the one who changed his mind. But to do that meant they had to find a way to leave this place.

One foot in front of the other, miles upon miles upon miles, until he could see a smudge on the distant horizon, and miles more until the smudge turned into a blur turned into a little brown box turned into a barn. It felt familiar, in a disconcerting sort of way; he had never been able to remember the end of the War, just his intent, and assumed he had blocked it out. Now, of course, he knew that he had simply been unable to remember because of all of himselves being there, but it was still unnerving to walk into a room where he had planned to destroy everything he had ever hated, everything he had ever loved, and only feel a mild sense of deja vu.

He opened the door, and dust swirled into the air, making him cough again. His attempts to wave it away only seemed to make it worse, so he fumbled back for a wall to lean against and waited for his eyes to stop watering, for the grit to settle.

Yes, but he did remember some of it. The walls of the cabin, wooden, shrunk by age and the suns, wide gaps between them. The boxes and the hay. The old sack lying on the floor, exactly where he had tossed it aside. The bronze box, untarnished, covered in a thin layer of the same dust that covered everything else. The Doctor knelt down next to it, digging through his pockets until he had a handkerchief he could use to wipe the dirt away, painstakingly cleaning every last corner and curve until it would have shone in the light, if there had been any light to speak of. It didn't matter, not really – the Moment was to go into the deepest section of the Omega Arsenal, locked away in the Time Vaults, never to be used or looked upon again.

Still, it had brought his future selves to him. Reminded him of who he was, in more than one way. Had given the opportunity to be here now, returning it to the Citadel.

“Hello, there,” he murmured when he had finished. It was sentient. It had helped him. He owed it a greeting, at the least. “Time to bring you back home, now.”

“Do you ever worry when someone's breathing changes?”

The voice was unexpected, and he startled, but he knew who it was all the same. The Doctor stood and looked around, freezing when he saw the woman sitting on a stack of crates across from him. The crates were covered in thick blankets, some vain hope that they might be used again, or that some lone survivor of the War would find the cabin and take warmth; the woman swung her legs back and forth like a child, wearing ragged clothes. Her leggings were full of holes, and her white skirt had been tied back so that it was easier to walk in, and her jacket, thick and heavy, was ripped at the joint of the elbows. Her boots were tattered. Her tunic was blue and faded.

“Someone you know so well,” Amy sighed. Not-Amy. He blinked and forced himself to focus-- she _wasn't_ Amy, his little Amelia Pond. Amy Williams. Amy was in the 1930s, safe and alive. Amy was dead, and so was Rory, and he had accepted that, but the scars across his hearts still hurt. “Someone you know everything about, right down to the tiniest things. And it gets to the point where even the _slightest_ change in there breathing tells you that something isn't right.”

She hopped off the crates. The Doctor stared at her hair, vibrant red, rivaling Gallifrey's plains.

“I listen to the universe sing, Doctor. I hear her sing, and I hear her voice echo through the cosmos, every whisper, every sigh, every breath.” Not-Amy looked... sad, for a moment. Just a moment. “I can't hear that here. It's silent.”

“You're the Moment,” he finally responded. “The Interface. I forgot you could do that. Activate yourself-- the Galaxy Eater, you can _activate yourself_.” A laugh tinged with hysteria threatened to bubble out, but he pushed it back down. A weapon that could end a war in a heartsbeat, sentient-- and it could activate itself.

“I can indeed, Raggedy Man,” the Moment agreed. He flinched.

“Don't,” he said stiffly. “That face, that name. It's painful to me—"

Before he could finish talking, with no obvious sort of transition, Not-River stood in front of him. It was as though she had always been there, and he couldn't quite remember if Not-Amy had been there speaking with him or not.

“The Time Lords sent you, yes?” she asked. The clothes were different, too, a simple dress of pure white, interwoven with threads of gold and blue. “To bring me back to the Vaults.”

“Yes,” he said.

The Moment tutted, shaking her head, and then Not-Rose was there, wearing an outfit he vaguely remembered from the last time he had stood in the cabin – yes, she _had_ been there, he remembered that, now. Or did he? It was hard to tell.

“I came in this form to your former self, when you stole me,” she told him gently. “It was from your future then, but you know it now. These faces from your past, do they bring you no joy to see them again?”

“I'm old,” he responded simply. “I have lived a long life. I have met millions of people. I've lost almost all of them. Each and every one, I outlive them, or they leave, or _I_ leave, or they die. My past isn't something I care to dwell on.”

The good memories certainly outweighed the bad, but even those were bittersweet. He had few regrets, and he had never regretted the people he met, but his gaze remained steadfastly forward. It was easier, that way.

“You always did run away.” Again, without a noticeable change or transition, there was a man standing in front of him, traditional Gallifreyan robes, a dark, dark red edged with gold. His hair was curly, a lighter red than the fabric, his eyes a hazel color that seemed almost gold. His voice was unexpectedly deep. “Is this one better? It's from your future. Or maybe it _is_ your past-- I don't see time as linear. It's all very complicated. I think you've met this one, at least, even if it is the wrong face.”

“No, I'm afraid I don't recognize it.” Still, the Doctor smiled, all the same. “I look forward to meeting you, whoever you are.”

“Ah, all in good time, Doctor.” The Moment returned his smile with a secretive one of his own. “All in good time.”

He didn't seem particularly inclined to say anything else, and the Doctor didn't know what he could possibly say in return, and so they remained in silence for a few moments longer. It was with great reluctance that he turned to pick the Moment up off the floor, looking apologetically to its interface.

“Thank you,” he finally said. “You showed me the future I needed to see, and I... I would have either gone through with it, or I would have failed, and both of those options would have ended in terror. I don't think I can ever repay you for that.”

The Moment laughed-- laughter! The Moment could _laugh_ , and he was just going to bring it back to be locked away again –- and patted the Doctor on the shoulder. “Strike a deal with me, then.” When the Doctor realized the question wasn't hypothetical and nodded, he continued. “Come and visit with me. It will be a long and lonely time, in the Vaults. The Time Lords are learning to change, Doctor, but change is always slow in coming, and it will be centuries before they comprehend they are not the sole form of life and everything else beneath them.”

“There's a day when that will change?” The Doctor's lips quirked up. “I hope I'm around to see it.”

“They will place me in the Vaults,” the Moment continued. “Since my creation I have been feared, a tool that should never once be touched. I was made for a purpose, and yet, I do not wish to fulfill it."

The Doctor paused briefly to muddle that over.

“A weapon so powerful it gained sentience, able to pass judgment on those who used it,” he said slowly – _able to activate itself_ \-- “and... because you were capable of judgment, you were locked away, because you might decide to use your power yourself, by yourself. Uncontrollable.” He hadn't thought of that when he first took the Moment with him, but looking back, it was... admittedly, it was daunting. Frightening. Could they truly even keep it captive? Perhaps the better option would be to toss it into a sun, except there was no proof even that would work. “Did they never speak to you?”

“You were the first to think to,” the Moment answered.

The Doctor pushed his fear away. Fearing something which had done nothing to cause fear-- fearing the _potential_ of harm, when no harm had been done-- that was something which, more often than not, only led to bad things. The Moment had helped him, and that was all.

“Well,” he said with a smile, “I think I can make that work. Possibly put in a word or two to Romana, for when I'm off-planet. Er, the Lady President. She traveled with me, when she was younger. She might be more apt to understand your sentience.”

“You are a kind man, Doctor, and the universe has done you many hardships.” The Moment sighed, shaking his head. “But she sings of you! Ah, does she sing of you!”

And he pressed two fingers to the Doctor's head, and the world went dark.

* * *

When he awoke, he was lying on the floor of his TARDIS console, feeling suspiciously well-rested despite how little he had been sleeping in the past few months. Years. Decades? Wincing as he moved – well-rested or no, the floor was uncomfortable, and this body was getting old, joints creaking and cracking – he stood up and looked around. A glance to the monitor told him the ship hadn't moved, and only a few hours had passed. The Moment was sitting innocently on the floor a few feet away; the interface was nowhere to be found.

Well, it had spared him the walk, and he didn't feel any ill-effects. Best not to worry about things he didn't need to worry about, not when there were more pressing matters.

“Okay,” he said aloud, knowing that the Moment could hear him, whether the interface was present or not. “Let's go home.”

* * *

Romana was up in one of the buildings above ground-level when the Doctor found her. There hadn't been any kind of spectacular view from here, before the War. It was just a window in a hallway, one of many windows, one of many hallways, that looked out onto the city beneath it. Romana stood here now to observe-- crashed ships, demolished buildings, empty skies, mountainsides that still burned though the fires of war had long since passed by.

“The General seemed relieved to have the Moment back,” he announced, though it was just the two of them there. She had guards, further down the hall, but she liked what few seconds of peace and quiet she could get. They kept a respectable distance at all times. “I tried to tell him he should be gentle, but he didn't seem to want to listen.”

She smiled faintly. “He's hardly going to set it off by accident.”

“Of course he wouldn't!” the Doctor agreed, sounding aghast. “I'd never imply such a thing. But it's a weapon that gained sentience, Romana. That's why no one ever dared to use it, because it would look back and it would judge. It's alive, it can _dream_ , and the current plan is to lock it away in a vault where it will never see sunlight again.” He wandered up to stand at her side, and his expression became solemn at the sight of the destruction. “You should treat your so-called tools more carefully,” he murmured. “They might start to get annoyed.”

She glanced aside. “Surely you are aware of how mad you sound.”

“Never stopped me before.” He sounded unrepentant.

He was right, of course; he generally was. The Time Lords never used the Moment because it had gained sentience-- it was terrible enough to use the tool for its intended purposes, to live with the guilt should one survive the weapon's deployment, to dare to go through with the destruction of a galaxy in the space of one heartsbeat to the next-- but the Moment was alive. It was watching. It knew exactly what its user intended to do, and it would make no move to stop them. It would only watch. If it was let free, who knew what it could do on its own?

And she thought about that, for a few breaths, and then her hearts clenched in her chest. In the last days, there had been no time to think about consequences, only actions with the least amount of casualties. A part of her mind had known that the use of the Moment equated to the destruction of all Tme Lords and Daleks in one fell swoop, which was a solution with far fewer deaths than the alternative: war, _the_ War, across all of the galaxies, in all points of history.

She had opened the way for the Doctor to steal the Moment, and he had been going to live with that.

“Did you intend to survive?”

He flinched, which was answer enough. It was a short time before he could speak. “Do you think I _wanted_ to? Romana, I was going to die that day with my people, firm in my beliefs that the universe would be better off for it.”

His head dropped. Romana counted heartsbeats, _thumpthump-thumpthump_ , two counts of four with each inhale, each exhale.

“That's what I told her. The Moment, rather. She said if I followed down that path, if I chose to destroy Time Lords and Daleks alike, then-- then surviving would be my punishment.” She nodded slowly, unsure of what to say-- of what could be said. “She made a deal with me, before I brought her back here. Company, as thanks for her showing me the future I needed to change my past.”

Romana blinked once, very slowly. The Doctor, mental shields as sloppy as they ever were, could not quite repress the sudden feeling that he had just messed up in a rather spectacular fashion.

“Change your past,” she repeated. “ _Change your past._ ”

“I might not have!” he was quick to defend, his hands flapping about. “The timelines were crossing over each other, what with how many of me there were in one spot, so I never remembered that I tried to save Gallifrey until _now_ , when I helped save it. For all I know-- for all _any_ of us know, let's be honest, here, Romana, for all we know, it had already happened, so who's to say I actually changed my past to begin with? Everything's fine, definitely fine, don't need to worry about a thing...”

“Change your _past_ ,” she said for the third time, and dropped her head into her hands. It was an awkward position, with the presidential collar hindering her movements, but _sometimes..._ “Your own personal timeline. I should have you _banished_ for that.”

His smile was crooked. “Too late for that!” he said brightly. “I've already been banished. And you don't have anywhere to banish me _to_ , can't forget that.”

“Do I even _want_ to know what else it is that you've been up to?”

“Welllll.” He drew the word out. “Probably not?”

“...You never change, old friend."

They looked out at the battered city, and the Doctor eyed the dome which encompassed it. It was massive, and much of the Citadel was still covered, but one of the two support struts which curved around the sides was missing, and there was a jagged slice across the sky where the dome had shattered. Scaffolding was barely visible from where they were standing, though the intent of it was not to rebuild-- the dome was a clear alloy, several meters thick and harder than diamond, and they hadn't the resources to reconstruct it. Rather, the current plan was to remove the parts of it which were damaged, in danger of falling; shards the size of a console room littered the outskirts of the city walls-- and those were the smaller pieces.

“It is one of many problems on a very long list,” Romana defended as she followed his gaze. “There is much to be done, but only so much we are currently capable of.”

“I never said a word.”

“I can hear you thinking.” He rolled his eyes, but she persisted. “No, Doctor, I mean that. Your thoughts are like a beacon.”

He frowned, pausing for a moment, as she could see him struggle to reign in his mind. The buzz in the air around her grew noticeably quieter, but it took time. “...Been a while since I had to do that.”

“I gathered as much. I would never pry like that, but there are others who would not hesitate.”

“Thank you for warning me.”

She dipped her head in a nod. The two stood in a companionable silence, watching the city below, and neither of them moved until the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps reached their ears.

“My Lady President!” A courier snapped into a salute, stopping a respectful distance away. His breathing was heavy. “A message for you, ma'am, from the harbors. Control just received word from the rescue fleet that went to Mount Perdition, ma'am, they'll be here within the day.”

* * *

The Doctor had all but flown back to his TARDIS, hoping to find a cleaner set of robes he could wear, thoughts racing, jumping from one topic to the next. Much time was spent fussing over the fabrics before the more rational part of his mind caught up to the rest of him – and _yes_ , he was quite capable of being rational, no matter what anybody else said. The courier had only said the fleet would be returning within the day, not when, not where. Likely, he had hours left to spare before--

\-- _Arkytior_.

As if she heard his thoughts, the TARDIS engines hummed a little bit louder, and the lights grew a little bit brighter. He patted the console with a fond smile. “I'll see if she wants to come back and say hello, yeah?”

Hours left to kill. He shook his head at his own hastiness – he was capable of being patient, too, _really_ , never mind that he could picture Romana breaking composure and laughing if he ever voiced the thought – took a couple of breaths to steady himself, and eventually settled down on the steps with a book. Theoretical universes and how they would, theoretically, work. Rather important kind of knowledge, these days.

And, as he often did when it came to books, he quickly lost awareness of the world around him. The old woman slipped in quietly through the doors – he'd been leaving them unlocked, for the most part, since he knew that the TARDIS wouldn't let in anybody that she didn't like – and he didn't notice her presence until she spoke up, quiet, calm.

“It's a fascinating theme you've chosen,” she said in a gentle kind of tone. The Doctor yelped, startled, fumbled with the book in his hands, and just barely avoided dropping it before losing his balance and getting tangled in his robes.

 _War hero_ , he thought to himself, struggling to get up. _Yes. Definitively so_.

“Um-- thank you?” he said when he finally managed to join her on the console level, looking at her in confusion. She was old, brown hair streaked heavily with gray, her robes a more faded color than the traditionally deep red. He didn't recognize her. Or-- maybe, he recognized her? He couldn't think from where. He was very old, after all, and he didn't know. He didn't know how old he was, either, but that was a different matter entirely. “Can I help you with something?”

Time Lords always had that obsession over politeness and conduct and other similarly ridiculous things. He wondered if falling over could be counted as a form of bowing.

“Those names... they are names?” She looked up to the gray panels encircling the time rotor in layers. “Friends?”

“Some of them,” he replied, glancing up. Susan, Ian, Barbara, Tegan, Adric, Melaine, Sarah, Alistair-- he wouldn't be able to fit them all up there if he tried, and sometimes, if he didn't look at the words for long enough, he found that he couldn't remember them.

“Lost?”

“Some of them,” he repeated, and then again: “Can I help you with something?”

He had no time for nostalgia, not now. Susan-- Arkytior-- her name didn't need to be up there, anymore. He was standing on his home planet for the first time in centuries. He had things to look forward to, in the future! And there was a stranger in his TARDIS.

She was looking at him with an odd expression, something-- confusion, was it? Hurt? “I only just found out that you were here, my dear boy. I wanted to see you.”

 _Dear boy_. Nobody called him that. Not on Gallifrey. Not on any planet. The words made something old and tired ache in his hearts.

“I...” He blinked several times, rapidly, finding himself close to tears for a reason he could not place. “I'm sorry-- I-- have we met? I'm afraid... well. The memory's going a bit, these days.”

Yes, it _was_ confusion, as well as hurt, but both rapidly cleared for-- for-- what?

“My dear boy,” she repeated, still in that same gentle tone, but her voice shook, now. Just a little bit. “My dear, dear Theta.”

That ache in his hearts, old and tired and untouched for so long, grew and grew. He had been standing on the opposite side of the console floor from her, and he didn't remember crossing it, but his head was resting on her shoulder and one of her hands gently carded through his hair, and she murmured old comforts into his ear. So long, so _long_ \-- he hadn't recognized her? How couldn't he have recognized her?

Would Arkytior recognize him, after everything? Would he recognize her?

“Don't be sad, dear boy,” Imala said quietly. “Don't be sad. You are here, now, and I am here, and the planet lives despite everything. Don't be sad, my dear.”

“Why would you-- you can't just _forgive_ me, I was--” He jerked back to stare at her, incredulous. “I would have _burned_ all of you, and _you_ , and my own granddaughter, and two and a half billion _children_ and billions others--”

She shook her head, hands on his shoulders-- that was love in her eyes-- how could she--?

“I'm your _mother_. I forgive you whether you want me to or not.”

“I didn't recognize--”

“Your face is unfamiliar to me, also. It has been centuries since we last met. Theta, my child, it's all right.”

He had pictures, somewhere, old friends and family and places he had once been-- books, from home, and recordings, and so much more, but his ninth had locked everything away in the depths of the TARDIS. He doubted he could find the room again, even if he thought his hearts could take the hurt.

“But--”

“Do you remember when Rassilon came through the time lock?” she cut in, and he could only nod. “I voted against his plan. One of two, in the entire Senate. I understand how terrible the War was, and I understand that anything-- _anything_ \-- needed to be done to stop it. Up to and including the theft of the Moment. I am _proud_ , Theta, do you understand? I am so very proud of you...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I hope you enjoyed this week's chapter, and comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @ floraobsidian for long and rambling posts about the Moment


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Arkytior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fought me. This week has tried to kill me, but I am still alive, and I have a chapter. It's kind of a happy chapter? Maybe? I might go edit it later.
> 
> So I know that, canonically, the Fall of Arcadia happened on the last day of the Time War, and the Doctor witnessing the destruction was what prompted him to steal the Moment and end it all. I'm taking creative license and setting that event earlier in the War -- still recent, still towards the very end, but not quite that close. The Doctor began to disobey orders sent by the Lord President following Arcadia's destruction, and he did steal the Moment on the Last Day, but there was time between Arcadia and then (breaking into the Omega Arsenal takes some planning). Arkytior spent the undefined amount of time between Arcadia and this chapter with her crew and the refugees she managed to get out crashlanded in the Firefields -- large portions of Gallifrey burned as a result of the planetary bombardment, and by the end of the War, entire continents were set aflame.
> 
> (this was supposed to be a happy chapter and then it got dark)
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: mentions of limb loss, some frank discussion of the happenings of the War, namely violence

The harbors bore little resemblance to what a harbor would be in the traditional sense of the word; they were a place for docking and repairing TARDISes, this was true, but in essence, they were a series of interconnected hangars which encircled the Citadel proper, all bigger on the inside to maximize the number of ships which could be stored in each. Still, harbors were what they had always been referred to, and so, harbors they were.

Most had been destroyed after the fall of Arcadia, either by enemy bombardment or by order of the High Council, blocking off entrances and scrapping the resources contained within. By the end of the War, the Time Lords had been losing, fighting desperately though they had no chance of winning; the Daleks had firebombed the entire planet before centering their focus on the Citadel. Arkytior remembered how even getting her fleet to launch had been close to impossible.

The Citadel looked much the same, she thought, watching it grow larger in the distance as the rescue fleet approached. Solace and Solitude were hardly recognizable, their peaks misshapen and cratered, and the Wastelands stretched for miles around in every direction, not yet cleared. There was no longer smoke pouring from the shattered dome that covered it, but on the return, the smog had been so thick over portions of the Firefields that all the pilots were flying blind.

But it was still the Citadel. Under the administration of the Lady President Romana, she could only hope that what she was returning to would be better than what she had left behind.

Leojil, her second, walked up to stand next to her at the viewport. “They want the injured off the ships, first, Admiral. Veterans next.”

“Sensible,” she agreed, nodding. “Go with them.”

He blinked. “Admiral?”

“The commander of a ship is the last one to leave.” She offered a shrug, a motion made awkward by the heavy armor she still wore and the empty sleeve which hung at her right side, but it conveyed her current thoughts quite well. “Therefore, I will remain.”

“Admiral--”

“Must I make it an order, Leojil? You've a husband waiting for you.”

He shifted, uncomfortable, torn between duty and matters of the hearts-- “Admiral,” he tried again, but she only had to look at him, leveling a flat stare. He sighed. “Permission to speak freely, ma'am?”

“Permission granted, Leojil.”

Leojil made eye contact. “You're terribly stubborn, ma'am.”

She smiled thinly, unapologetic. “But of course.”

He continued to shift on his feet, though, back and forth in a subtle kind of way. Then he drew a deep breath to speak. “As all battle TARDISes have been grounded, and Gallifrey no longer requires a standing army-- I have to say, Admiral, it has been an honor to serve with you.”

Leojil had been the second-to-last off of the _Pandora_ before its emergency evacuation, or so she was told. She had remained at the helm, as duty required of her, and the battle TARDIS had been struck with another one of the Dalek's dimensional rays. She was lucky that she had only lost her arm up to part of the shoulder as the console room collapsed around her, luckier still that Leojil had been willing to defy a direct order and drag her to an escape capsule of her own while she remained catatonic. He was a good soldier, intelligent, collected in battle, able to think quickly and improvise if needed.

“My Lord Leojil,” she answered with a salute, watching as he tried vainly to keep his shock from showing on his face. “The honor has been mine.”

He stiffened into a salute of his own a few moments later. “My Lady Admiral!”

The viewscreen dimmed abruptly, a hologram of pale blue circles cropping up. At the same time as the visual, a recording played out through the TARDIS corridors.

 _Attention. Descent to Citadel harbors in 3.749 minutes_. _Attention. Descent to Citadel harbors in..._

She left the viewport behind, Leojil walking a half-step behind her at the right; still, she remained on one of the higher platforms while he continued to descend. The great engines shuddered as they powered down, and she could feel the vibrations through the floor. Under normal circumstances, she would leave to give a report and to take her next assignment –- and she would, eventually, for while Gallifrey was no longer at war (what a thought!), the planet still had a standing navy, and she was one of the last surviving admirals –- but she had received a transmission from the General as soon as the ships were in range. All casualties had been relayed, the numbers triple-checked by herself; she was on the list of the injured, and her current orders were to return to assigned quarters and rest for a day before reporting and returning to her duties.

She watched the injured be rushed out-- watched the capsules containing the confession dials of the fallen be moved more slowly, those around the carriers giving them a respectful berth. Soldiers moved in groups, departing in units. Outside the doors, she could hear a growing clamor; the rescue ships were structured differently than the battle TARDISes or any of the personal models, the main console hub located in an upper level while the doors opened wide out of a large atrium, allowing for quicker and easier travel in and out. She descended when the last of the groups was called, joining exhausted men and women who still found the strength to straighten, to salute, to smile wide or start to cry, shaking her hand as they thanked her. Arkytior accepted these as best she could-- it was her duty to help them all, it always had been; they were her soldiers, her crew. But there was still something different in the air as they left the rescue ship and entered the harbor where they had been docked.

This was the Citadel underfoot. This was the closest thing to home that existed anymore, and they were _here_.

The harbors were loud, crowded-- likely more crowded than they had been since the War ended. She could see grit and rust on the floors and walls, and scrap hastily shoved aside, but most prominent were the crowds, the joyful shouts and cries as families were reunited. Her hearts ached at the noise. She caught a glimpse of Leojil, beaming through his tears, holding his husband Andrynn close before others moved and they disappeared in a rush of crimson robes.

Her hearts were tired. The loss of her arm no longer bothered her; the pain was bearable, and this incarnation was ambidextrous. But she had known nothing but war for most of her life-- Gallifrey's last surviving admiral, Gallifrey's _youngest_ admiral, called to fight when her great-grandchildren had only just been born on Earth, hardly three centuries to her name. This period of recuperation that stretched ahead was entirely unfamiliar, and she was to enter it alone.

She thought of her crew, and the years they had spent grounded. That was a family of its own, perhaps. They were no longer at war, but that hardly meant she would stop looking after them.

She thought of Leojil, and his husband, and wondered how many of them had family by blood to take care of them, now.

There were shouts and calls above the general noise, overlapping-- names, titles, _matierne_ and _patierfa_ and _natrellya_ and--

“ _Neptispre_!” A specific word that referred to one's first-born granddaughter, and a word that Arkytior had not heard in-- centuries, perhaps? She had heard the word amidst the other cries, but she hadn't dared to hope--

“ _Neptispre_!” came the voice again, a little louder, and then, “Oh, heavens-- Arkytior!”

She turned.

The man was a stranger to her in terms of appearance, brown hair starting to go gray and red robes the same as any other high-ranked Gallifreyan, but Arkytior would know his mind anywhere, open and welcoming and tangling with hers an instant before he crashed into her, holding her close. Heedless of the bulky armor she wore, or that her arm was pinned to her side by his own so she could not hug him back, he rested his chin atop her head and took a shaky breath as though he was trying not to cry.

“No, no-- wait, no--” She struggled a bit, took a step back, stared at the man standing in front of her. “You're _alive_.”

Confusion crossed over his features. She could feel the _lovecarehope_ of his thoughts tangled in with her own, and there were indeed tears in his eyes, wet tracks down his cheeks. “Yes?”

“No-- you're--” Years in the Firelands, centuries fighting through hell, and this was all it took to make her fall apart. “The last I heard, you had abandoned your post. Disobeyed direct orders from the Lord President. _How_ are you alive?”

“Ah.” Her grandfather tried for a smile, but it didn't quite come out right. One of his hands brushed a stray hair from her face; the other remained on her shoulder. “Yes. That is. That is a long, long story.”

“I have time.” Her eyes burned. The noise of the harbors around them had faded into the background. Fleet disbanded, on orders to take the time of one day before giving her report. “I've been assigned quarters?”

The smile turned sad. It seemed more fitting on his face than when he was trying to make it look happy. “We can go there, if you would rather. Or the TARDIS. My TARDIS. Or--”

“It matters not, Grandfather, just as long as I can see you.” She touched his robes, red and faded; her gaze lingered on the age in his eyes, the cracks in his expression, the gray in his hair and the lines on his face. “I have... I've missed you.”

He laughed, the sound wobbling, faint. “I've missed you very, very much, granddaughter.”

* * *

They sat shoulder to shoulder at a small table in a quaint little kitchen somewhere in her grandfather's TARDIS. The floors were black and white tile, the appliances ancient by Gallifreyan standards, but Arkytior had not set foot in a room so clean for a very long time, and she did not particularly care for the quality of anything. It was all better than her past accommodations. A fresh pot of tea sat between them, and they each held mugs in their hands, steam curling up in the air with a dry, smoky kind of smell.

“Not quite the same as c'tal,” he had apologized as he poured. “Earth equivalent. I've found it's rather close.”

Arkytior had not had anything but military rations since the War began. C'tal had not passed her lips in... quite a long time. She remembered the taste of it, though-- the memory of a Time Lord was rivaled only by a few others in the universe-- and she found her grandfather was right, as she took a hesitant sip. A bit more watered down than c'tal, less spiced, but close enough.

Still, she watched as his hands shook as he set the pot down, and how his eyes seemed suspiciously bright, and how his thoughts frayed out at the edges, and chose not to mention any of that. She thanked him politely and took another sip.

“Your ship was happy to see me,” she murmured.

The console room was darker than the old one had been; larger, too. The time rotor ran from floor to ceiling, disappearing through the console platform and running down to the floor; Gallifreyan lined the edges of the doorway and encircled the top of the rotor, close to the ceiling. It was all dark grays and silver and a bright, electric kind of blue that could only remind her of Dalek weaponry, and she had stopped the moment she caught sight of it-- but then the lights had grown brighter, and a low whirring came from the console, engines thrumming up through the floor, chimes sounding from somewhere. She had smiled, though the expression had felt stiff on her face, and the chimes had continued on.

“Of course she was!” Her grandfather sounded proud. “You think she wouldn't remember you?”

“It has been a while,” was all she said.

His thoughts were scattered-- they always had been, never quite hidden behind his mental shields. Guilt featured most prominently-- joy, too, at seeing her again, but the _guilt_ \-- it felt like her own, when she remembered those of her crew who hadn't made it back.

Guilt for _what_ , she didn't know-- his role in the War, perhaps, or what he had done that made him so sad, that he still wouldn't tell her about-- or, going further back, for leaving her behind? She hadn't seen him once between standing next to David and her arrival to the War, and even then, it had been stories or pictures-- an old man, a soldier-- _the Doctor of War is always unarmed_.

She took a sip of tea and let the taste of it ground her. She had never hated him for leaving her behind-- they could talk about it later. There were other things she needed to know, more important.

“You still haven't explained,” she said, and her grandfather froze with a mug of tea raised halfway to his mouth. Arkytior wondered at what that look could mean-- what could have scared him like this? War changed people, she knew that better than anyone, but he was already such a far cry from the grumpy old man she had known. Scared of her reaction? She didn't hate him. Could never hate him. And hating him for actions taken in the War would be quite hypocritical of her.

“You disobeyed direct orders from the Lord President. You went rogue, Grandfather. And now Gallifrey has been moved, and the War is over, and the Lord President is dead-- I know the two have to be correlated. Please, Grandfather, _something_ happened. I can see it in your eyes. Please tell me.”

He had gotten steadily paler as she spoke, until he was a pasty sort of gray, and his eyes were fixed upon her face and a million miles away, and his hands were trembling just a little bit as he set down his drink. “I won't blame you if you want to leave.”

It was not the answer she had been expected to hear, and it was not the one she wanted. “ _Grandfather_ ,” she said sharply, worry now giving an edge to her words.

He sighed. His eyes shut.

“Romana and I had been communicating with one another over the duration of the War. After she was deposed. Once I finally returned to fight. Not often, never face to face, always in code. And-- the last days, after Arcadia had fallen, after the Citadel was trapped under siege, after everything-- and I picked up a transmission. Short, garbled, only a few words. High Council. Final Sanction. _End_.”

A slow breath in; a slow breath out.

“They had to be stopped.”

“So--” She blinked a couple of times, tapping her fingers against the side of her mug, struggling to draw a conclusion as horrifying as he seemed to think it was going to be. “You stopped them?”

He laughed, a bitter noise. “Oh, Kyt. I stole the Moment.”

Her childhood nickname, coupled with the words that followed-- there was an instant of silence; her hearts skipped a beat. Static roared in her ears. He kept talking.

“And I would have done it! I went to the Desolations-- where your great-granmother's estate used to be, carried it for miles. Because the Final Sanction, Kyt, it was going to rip the Vortex apart, destroy everything, save for the collective Time Lord consciousness.”

A slow breath in, shaky; a slow breath out.

“But the legends about it were true-- an operating system so powerful that is became sentient. Opposed to its sole, singular purpose. Strong enough to rip time tunnels out of the War. It showed me--” _**Me**_ , in their native tongue, in this context, encompassed the incarnation of himself he was referring to, and that incarnation's distance from his current incarnation-- and though his words were already difficult enough for Arkytior to process, that difficult increased a hundredfold when she ran the numbers-- regeneration number eight, body number nine, four regenerations from his current body-- so _long_ since she had seen him, and this was the last one, already starting to go gray?

“--showed me the future, brought me then to me now and the one before me. Brought the three of us back to the Desolations. Gave us the opportunity to run calculations across all of my lives, and move the planet. But I would have done it, Kyt. Burn us all to save the universe. You and Mother and everyone I had ever known. I would-- I would have done it.”

His voice broke. Arkytior could feel dimensions collapsing around her, folding in, arm and shoulder vanishing as space crumpled like a wad of paper, and the Firefields, endless, surrounding the wrecks of their ships, nothing but smoke and fire for years and years-- they had already burned, and she struggled to imagine anything worse.

An Admiral of the War, she knew the dangers of crossing one's own timeline. When one had power over space-time and all the dimensions they encompassed, wars became both easier and far, far more complex; should their soldiers die, it was simple to resurrect them, but time tangled with each alteration. She had memorized all negative outcomes to weigh against the benefits of bringing her armies back to fight again, time twisting and falling apart around her.

“And you remembered that you _did_ do it. Not that you would have, but that you did. Because you forgot.”

His head snapped up; he stared at her, tear tracks down his cheeks, old and tired and shaking; her hearts shattered.

“I fought at Arcadia the first two times it fell.” She took another drink from her mug, set it down, and clenched her hand into a fist, nails digging into her skin. “I died both times. I remember it. Then they rewrote history to stop it again, and they kept me back, because I was too valuable to the war effort to be lost. The entire city fell three times over because I was too important to the High Council-- Gallifrey's most densely populated city. Billions of lives. _Too important_ to the High Council, Grandfather, I was _good_ at what I was supposed to do. Good at fighting. Good at killing. They _let_ Arcadia fall to keep me alive, and the only reason they allowed me to lead the rescue fleet was because there were Dalek outposts en route we could destroy.”

She wasn't one for crying, not now, not after everything. But her hearts felt heavy, and her grandfather's expression--

“It frightens me, that you could commit genocide,” she said. “I won't lie to you. But I understand.”

The smile wouldn't come to him this time, not even a sad one; he reached out to cover her fist with his hand, looking tired, old.

“Look at us, Kyt. Look at us...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> News for _home is where your hearts are_ : while the future sequel with the Master is giving me Struggles, it's still in the works, and I've also started up a Moment-centric sequel that covers the events of the Fiftieth, _Advent_ , and some other bits and pieces. I've got an outline and everything!
> 
> As always, I hope you liked this chapter, and comments and kudos are much appreciated. Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian for writerly rambles and the occasionally chapter excerpt.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'd assume that two who know one another better than most anyone else in the universe would be able to recognize one another by sight, yes?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be out all day on a college visit to my future alma mater, which unfortunately means that I have to be up by five in the morning, so here's a very early chapter post before I leave as opposed to a very late one!
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: none

He was sitting up on the bed when the woman came back in, cross-legged on the mattress, still with the picture. It was resting in his lap, creased where his fingers had gripped it too tightly.

 _Imala_. That was her name. Gallifreyan for _she who is graceful_ , though once upon a time she had insisted he call her _Matierne._

Mother.

He had been little more than a child, then. They had both been children, then. Things were simple, then.

Heavens, but he hated simple things.

Maybe he missed those simple things.

“Koschei?” she murmured, and he could hear the surprise in her voice. His mind reared back at the sound of his name _nothishame_ and he could hear the laughter of two friendsbrothersfriends echoing in the silence and his memory was still patchy, gaping. But he remembered the woman. He remembered the boys. He remembered himself, more or less.

“It's quiet,” he said, testing the sound of his own voice. It hurt to speak. He couldn't remember the last time he had moved from this room. This bed. “The drums... The drums. Gone, now. Link broke.”

She sat down in her chair. He looked up at her-- down at her, really, for even slouched over the photograph like this, he was still taller than she was. She reached out to brush her hand against his, ghost of a reassurance. He had large hands, this time around. Thin fingers. His hair kept falling into his eyes-- red hair. He had red hair, this time around.

“I was instructed, when you were brought here, to inform someone the moment you became lucid,” she told him gently. Her eyes were old. Kind. Too much like her son. He hated those eyes. “Given how long you were lost in your mind, I don't think they have as much interest in questioning you, but I can wait. If you want me to, I can wait, for a little while, if you would prefer some time.”

“You were there,” he bit out. There was a sneer to his words, but it felt forced. Took effort. “Rassilon was there. Two guards. The Shamed fool. You know. All of you know.”

He looked back at the picture. One of the boys had dark hair; one of the boys had blond hair. He didn't think he'd ever been blond, until the last body. That meant he had been the dark-haired boy.

“Rassilon is dead,” Imala told him, and his head snapped up, and he locked gazes with those hated eyes. He might have shied away from the forgiveness there, as he had done so many times before, had he not been processing her words. Her lips curved in a gentle kind of smile. Too much like her son's. He hated that smile. “Theta broke the link you created, and you attacked Rassilon. You were pulled back to Gallifrey with the rest of us. The Lady President ordered that the Nurse do all in his power to keep you alive, and so he did.”

“ _Lady_ President.”

He had killed Rassilon. _He_ had killed Rassilon? And the Time Lords had not yet strung him up outside the Citadel for all to see, to mock, to be warned away by? Rassilon-- great Rassilon, Rassilon the Powerful, Rassilon the Redeemed, Rassilon the Redeemer--

“Lady President Romana,” Imala supplied, which only brought more questions than it answered. Romana had known the Doctor. She had no reason to spare him.

He looked back down at the picture again, tilting it from side to side to catch every angle of the snapshot of time. He couldn't remember when it had been taken.

“You have sat here for days,” he said.

“Months,” Imala corrected, and he flinched. “More than a year. Gallifrey is rescued-- a longer story, for another time-- but it is also trapped. We are slow to rebuild without resources.”

“Months,” he repeated. “Your trust in me will be your downfall, woman.”

She had the audacity to smile at him. “Perhaps,” was all she answered with.

His lips curled up in a not-quite-sneer, an almost-snarl. “Tell them what you will of me. I don't care.”

She hummed in response, but did not get up. She sat with him for the remainder of the day-- such as “day” was, here, for he could see no suns or stars in the sky-- and only spoke again when she stood to leave.

“I spoke with my son, earlier,” she said, and his mind reeled away from the implications. “He visits the medical sector, speaks with the children, if you ever want to find him.”

And then she was gone, and the room was quiet, and the Master was left with only a picture and his thoughts to fill the silence in his head.

* * *

His time spent on Gallifrey was, for the most part, spent in meetings.

The Doctor had no particular desire to enter into politics-- he had been Lord President once, and once was more than enough! Still, he had very little choice in the matter. Bringing his TARDIS into a parallel pocket universe had been nigh on impossible; yet, comparing that task to the matter of moving an entire planet _out_ of said parallel pocket universe and back into the one which it had initially departed from, all the while ensuring that it remained intact along with its citizens and, upon its advent, entered into its proper gravitational orbit around its binary suns-- heavens, but flying a single TARDIS in was child's play!

He needed to know the state of the planet. He needed to know estimates as to how long he had to find out how to move the planet _back_ \-- he had hoped, quite fervently, that Gallifrey would be able to find a break through all on its own, or that when he arrived, it would have recovered more, and the planetary shift would be less of a hassle, but such was not the case; he was not the type to back down from a task when it became unexpectedly difficult.

Unexpectedly difficult was an accurate summation of his life, to be perfectly honest.

And, again, to be perfectly honest, he would sit through all sorts of politics if it meant he got to see his old friend again. Romana liked politics about as much as he did, but she had far more skill and tolerance for it, and watching her work was incredible. There was no small amount of pride nestled between his hearts. He _loathed_ the situation which enabled her to demonstrate that skill, but all the same, it was quite marvelous.

He would sit through all sorts of politics if it meant he got to see his home restored to her rightful place in the stars.

It had been decided (in one of many, many meetings) that, even if they should find a way to bring Gallifrey out of its pocket universe, they should not implement it until the dome around the Citadel had been repaired, the majority of their fellow Gallifreyans brought back from the Wastelands, and the transduction barrier brought into working order. The legends of the Time Lords were exactly that-- legends, sustained by one man. They were listened to as a flight of fancy, a bedtime story, something to be laughed at come the day. A reappearing planet did not go unnoticed; word would spread like cosmic wildfires upon its return, and anyone who thought there might be something to get out of it for themselves would come rushing in.

Gallifrey, without her defenses, would be ripe for the picking.

The Doctor would do all that he could to protect this place. Even if it was horrifically dull sometimes. And even if he hated politics.

Months had passed. Gallifrey was less likely to fall apart. Romana had cemented herself in her position as Lady President, having the backing of the General and the War Council, along with a good portion of the senators who remained. Granted, the senators were only likely to support her as long as it benefited themselves and not a second more, but it was support all the same.

And, though he hated to think about any of it, he had been a war hero. Had led armies. Had destroyed countless more. His name held weight, and his name was tied to Romana's.

Months had passed. The Doctor dug out a pair of Gallifreyan robes he had long-since buried in the back of the TARDIS closets, wobbling between annoyance at the conformity and delight that he could wear the traditional clothes of his people along with them once again. When he wasn't in meetings, or tinkering under the console, he let himself take the occasional wander around the Citadel, late at night, when there were less people to thank him or ask him questions or eye him with mistrust.

Months had passed, and he was on such a wander, not really paying attention to where he was going, somehow winding up in a part of the medical sector he had yet to enter. Though, considering the sheer scope of everything on Gallifrey, that wasn't much a surprise. Some vague intentions drifted to the forefront of his mind-- visit the children he had brought back, check the medical records again-- Rassilon was always _the late Lord Rassilon_ , titles and respect still present even after all he had done, all he had planned to do, and those who knew the events of his death spoke little of it. The Doctor vividly remembered that day, Gallifrey burning, fazing into existence above the Earth-- Rassilon, and the Master, and a pistol, and his mother on her knees, tears on her cheeks, gray in her hair.

It had somehow _slipped everyone's minds_ to tell him that she had survived, and he could feel his traitor hearts starting to hope again. Could other he knew have survived? Arkytior was still alive, and Imala-- his children were dead, he knew as much, but Braxiatel? Leela?

Lost in his thoughts and his wandering, a distinct lack of paid attention noticeable to anyone who was watching, the Doctor crashed headlong into another man walking in the opposite direction as him, someone with an equal lack of paid attention.

The man made a wordless sound, glaring at him through narrowed eyes and taking an immediate step back to distance himself. The Doctor also took a step back, more for the stranger's benefit than his own, murmuring an apology as he did. The stranger had a decidedly unhealthy appearance, gaunt features, red robes hanging off of his frame in swaths of fabric--

Hold on.

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor said quickly, before the stranger could continue off in a huff to... wherever it had been, that he had been going. Red hair, piercing eyes; the Moment had emulated the stranger's appearance right down to the patterns lining the edges of his robes, though it was clearly the man when he had been healthier, before... whatever had happened. “Have we met before? You seem familiar.”

The man had the courtesy to pause, at least, though it looked less of courtesy and more confusion-- the man, confused that anyone would want to talk with him. And was that-- panic? Well-concealed panic, but present all the same. “...Doubtful. New face.”

“Ah.”

Neither of them moved for several seconds. The Doctor stared, feeling as though he knew the stranger but unable to place where or when they could have met before. Heavens, but his mind was starting to go...

“...Were you. Walking that way?” asked the stranger, looking perturbed with himself even as he spoke, as though he was continuing the conversation without knowing why, gesturing vaguely with one hand. The Doctor pointed down in the direction from which the man had come from.

“The medical sector,” he corrected, shifting a bit on his feet. “Or, part of it. That way? There were these children, come out of the Forests of Prosperity. Ah. Yourself?”

“Just. Wandering, I suppose.”

That was something he could relate to, if nothing else. Aimless wandering was a much-loved pastime. Practically a hobby! Though this seemed to him like a specific kind of aimless wandering, wandering because nothing else had depth or meaning to it-- he could relate to that, too, if he was being honest, but those were thoughts for another time.

“You could come with me? They don't get many visitors, I don't think.”

The stranger's lip curled, distaste apparent; still, much like before, he nodded in a perturbed kind of agreement, and they both continued onwards, shoulder to shoulder and saying very little. He didn't seem like someone who talked very much, this stranger, and while the Doctor knew he could talk enough for the both of them, he didn't care to make the man more sullen than he already was.

He never forgot a face, though-- even the ones he had yet to meet. There was a prickling familiarity, similar to when his mother had set foot in his TARDIS and he had seen her face for the first time in centuries, but more uncomfortable, a nagging kind of feeling that wouldn't leave him alone. It went beyond the Moment's foreshadowing, beyond the knowledge that he and this stranger had crossed paths before. He _knew_ the other Time Lord. Somehow.

The stranger gave no indication of feeling the same; he offered no title or name, just tapped his fingers against the fabric of his robes as he walked, on the offbeat of his footsteps.

There were no nurses in the room the children were staying in, when the two of them finally arrived, the stranger lingering in the doorway before fully stepping through, while the Doctor settled down into a chair with a sigh. They looked healthier than they had when he had first found them, which wasn't saying terribly much, too-thin state more readily apparent in the red robes they wore. Their heads had been shaved, the mats and clumps of hair now gone.

Tianna slept in one bed, resting fitfully; Iota was at the foot of her mattress, and Viram was nestled in between the two. The other two beds were empty, neat, not slept in.

There was a rustle of fabric as the stranger sat down in a chair near the Doctor's, lips pressed together in a thin line.

“Too young,” he finally said. The Doctor's hearts ached.

“Too young,” he agreed.

“Too young,” the man repeated, “and forced through hell. Out the other side. How many others who couldn't run?”

 _Two-point-four-seven billion_.

He could still hear the bitter venom in his last incarnation's voice, the pain still heavy in his hearts-- but his younger self had gotten it wrong. The Moment had gotten it wrong, too. It had taken far, far longer than a night to count the names of two-point-four-seven billion children, and the names themselves were forgotten, but the number? No, there wasn't anywhere he could move on to that he could forget something like that.

The Doctor clamped down on those thoughts before they could bleed out into the air around them, all the pain and heartsbreak and trauma. He had good things to focus on, now-- the children were alive, all two and a half billion! And the stranger – who gave no indication that he had heard anything leak out beyond his shields – certainly didn't need the Doctor's burdened thoughts on top of his own.

No, he had good things to focus on, now.

* * *

_The Valiant had never been an especially cheerful kind of place. It was a military base, and such things were not known for their light and jovial atmosphere._

_Still, one would take anything over this hell. Surely, **anything** had to be better than this._

_The Doctor blinked, slow, exhausted, trying to keep his stomach calm as the Master jabbed at the birdcage, making him swing alarmingly from side to side. The other Time Lord's voice was loud, his breath hot in the Doctor's face-- heavens, but it was **night**. Did he never sleep? _

“ _Of course I sleep,” snapped the Master, grabbing the bars of the cage, stopping the swinging so abruptly that the Doctor lost his balance and toppled over with a low grunt. “I sleep just as much as **you**. Your mental shields are atrocious, has anyone ever told you that?”_

“ _Often,” said the Doctor, who didn't care to waste energy on things he didn't need to, but knowing if he didn't give an answer, then the Master would never leave him alone._

_Hadn't they been friends, once?_

_Hadn't they been **friends**?_

“ _How did it feel, Doctor?” the Master demanded to know-- his voice had gone soft, all of a sudden, and he rested his head against the outside of the cage, metal pressing into his skin. Moonlight and starlight lit the Valiant's conference room where he was being kept, nothing more, not this late at night; the catch of silver in his eyes was almost like the trees had been on Gallifrey. Shining bright, masking something much darker. “Gallifrey, dead. Two civilizations on their knees because of **you**. How many families, hm? How many lives lost? How **many** , my dear Doctor? How did it feel?”_

_Earth was burning below them, much as Gallifrey had done, and though time itself was nothing like it had been in the War-- snagged on a latch hook, instead of irreparably tangled and set aflame-- the sour taste of a nearby paradox machine was far too uncomfortably familiar. Here, floating high above the destruction with a prime view for it all out the Valiant's windows... he was fighting again, in his mind. The exhaustion was the same, too._

“ _How did it **feel**?” the Master repeated, shaking the cage, voice going hard again as the Doctor took too long to respond._

 _"You were right," he snapped back as the cage jerked again, and his stomach lurched painfully, and it was more than he fell forward with his own momentum instead of reaching out, grabbing the bars of the cage where the Master was staring through. The touch of their skin_ _felt like poison in his mind, nauseating, and his skin crawled, but he would take it over the endless silence most of the time. “Does that make you happy? Two-point-four-seven **billion** children died that day-- you were right! When you ran, all the way to the end of the universe, you were **right**.”_

_The Master's grip slackened on the bars, and he took a step back, and the Doctor sighed, and the room was silent once more._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! I hope that kind of lived up to everyone's standards? Maybe even if it wasn't the confrontation you all were expecting to come of it?
> 
> The next chapter is very much a large amount of Emotional Pain, so I'm warning you in advance about that, but then things tend to be kind of on the up and up from there on out. We're more than halfway done! Things are getting better. As always, I hope you enjoyed, and comments and kudos are very much appreciated.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr if you want to yell about the Series 10 trailers (or about anything, really) @floraobsidian


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter of Emotional Pain, as was forewarned.

The sirens blared out a warning.

Gallifreyans rushed, panicked, through the wide hallways, fleeing though they knew not where; guards and soldiers did their best to maintain a semblance of order, though they themselves were just as scared-- there was little by way of ammunition by the end of the War, and much of the weapons they possessed had been exchanged to be melted down and put to rebuilding. They were unarmed, now, and likely going to die.

After everything, after they had dared to _hope_ \--

Romana, having been in transit from one meeting to another, sprinted down a corridor, the General jogging to keep up, the two Presidential Guards assigned to her on their heels; she steadfastly ignored the combined efforts of the three to get her to go somewhere safe.

“Ma'am, I must _insist_!” the General nearly shouted. The breakaway from his normal conduct was enough to get Romana to look over at him, but she did not slow as she rounded a corner, making a beeline for the makeshift chambers in which most of her meetings had been held. “The Dalek is two levels away from us and closing; you _must_ descend to safer areas until the threat has been neutralized--”

“Do you presume to give me orders, my Lord General?”

“I have participated in one military coup; I do not intend to participate in another,” he replied tersely, biting out the words. “My Lady President, Gallifrey _cannot_ lose you at such a crucial time. If you are to die, we have no one to lead us, no clear chain of command. Ma'am, when I ask this of you, I ask not for your own benefit, but for all of ours!”

There was a curious emphasis on _our_ that she chose to acknowledge and analyze at a later time, if there ever was one. They rounded another corner, never losing speed.

“I presume you will be returning to your troops, to oversee the defenses?”

“That was my intention, my Lady President.”

“Godspeed, then, my Lord General-- there is another meeting taking place in the afternoon. I expect I _will_ see you there?”

They halted in front of the room which had been their initial destination. The General looked at her with no small amount of scrutiny, considering which line of questioning he would first like to pursue, if he even had the _time_ \-- “I would not dream of being late, my Lady President. Will you allow yourself to be escorted to a safer location?”

“There is a Dalek inside our Citadel, my Lord General. We are nowhere safe.” She shook her head slowly. “Should I must, I will leave, but I remain with my people for as long as I am able to.”

He didn't seem pleased-- if he were another man, she would have said that he was furious, but he kept his emotions under check, as he always did. “If you _insist_ , my Lady President,” he said, and then he was gone in the direction from which they had come.

It had a year since the Doctor's arrival, close to two since Gallifrey's rescue; with the city, Gallifrey's last refuge for its surviving population, in ruins, they had resorted to bringing everyone within the inner walls of the Citadel, the places which had been reserved solely for the government in times of peace. The planet had once been home to thirty billion souls; the number was now four billion and change, centered in the remains of what had once been one of two major cities, so the space was not a problem for them, but at times it still felt impossibly crowded. Every area was now home to the tired and the hungry, the orphans looking for their parents and the parents looking for their children, the refugees staggering in from across the Wastelands and the Firefields, the soldiers who no longer had a war to fight in.

The youngest and the eldest had been moved to the medical sector of the Citadel, all who were unable to fight for themselves. It was in the sub-levels, safe from surface bombardments, almost in the center of the Citadel. It was _safe_ there.

And there was a Dalek moving straight towards it.

Romana strode into the room, clamping down on the fear which threatened to bleed through her shields, to reveal itself in her eyes. Anyone who wasn't frightened was an idiot, but if she could at least project the image of calm, it might help the others to keep their heads level, to buy the most time. Immediately, she was presented with information-- the dead, the wounded, the state of the defenses scrambled into position, the most likely paths it would take--

Just because Gallifrey had moved, just because it had been months without a single sighting of a live Dalek, just because they were no longer in an active war zone, none of that meant that they were _safe_. Not quite two years, little more than the blink of an eye beyond their should-have-been demise, and they had already grown complacent. _One_ Dalek had been overlooked, and they were paying for it in blood.

One Dalek, trapped underneath the wreckage surrounded the city, the Wasteland of crashed ships; one Dalek, hibernating until an opportune time to strike, only awoken when their efforts to begin clearing space had unearthed it.

More than one thousand dead because of _one Dalek_.

The battle TARDISes were grounded; the mass-production of weapons had been canceled in an attempt to conserve resources and drag themselves back to an attitude more suited to peace. They were hopelessly outgunned and hilariously unprepared.

Arcadia would have fallen because of a single Dalek. This was only the beginning.

What _fools_ they were.

“Perimeter defenses at Level Nine have fallen--”

“--not enough TARDISes available to clear out the medical sectors--”

“--Level Ten is evacuating, but there are still--”

“--still no response from Levels Six through Eight--"

“--men down at the inner defenses of Level Nine--!”

“Romana! Er-- Lady President!”

The breach of propriety was enough to catch her attention in the flurry of words, though she registered every bit of information still being blurted out and cataloged it, for all the good it would do her-- the Doctor pushed his way forward, though it took a moment for Romana to see him, as in his red robes, he looked the same as the rest of the room.

“The transport tubes in those wings are still down, they were damaged in the early stages of bombardment, and we haven't the resources to repair them yet,” she told him. A guard came running up, out of breath, managing a shaky salute:

“From the defenses at Level Ten, ma'am, we haven't enough ammunition--”

“Is there _any_ way to send supplies to our defenses?” she demanded of the room at large. “Any way to evacuate which doesn't involve creating a paradox we haven't the resources to fix?”

For a moment, no one answered, and the Doctor took the instant of silence to speak up again. “Romana, please-- everyone is cleared away, except for the rest of the levels?”

“Yes,” she started, “but why--”

“Wonderful!” He clapped his hands together, offering a strange smile. “Hang tight, keep everything in order, I'll handle the Dalek.”

He was halfway across the room before she could even register the words. “Are you _insane_?” she shouted after him. “Are you _completely_ mad? To move against a single Dalek, alone, _unarmed_ , is tantamount to suicide!”

“Don't you worry about me!” he called back over his shoulder, shoving open the doors, striding forwards. “I've done much worse!”

“Doctor--!”

“For what it's worth, ma'am-- er-- Lady President--?” The guard tripped over his words some, still trying to regain his breath. “I served with him. Earlier, in the War. He was never armed.”

Romana stared at the doors through which he had left. The collar of the President felt curiously heavy today.

Stomach twisting into knots around the ball of ice which had settled there, she turned away and began throwing out orders twice as quickly, listening with half an ear as more information and reports came in.

“Get a team of armed soldiers, if at all possible,” she snapped. “Don't go in unless he calls for them, but keep them there. Clear?”

“Ma'am!”

* * *

The drums, he knew, had driven him mad, but he thought the silence was going to be the death of him.

It was silent now, sans the cloister bells tolling out, low gongs which made his very bones rattle. The quiet between them pressed down on the crowded rooms like a shroud, making it difficult to breathe, to think.

God, Daleks. Hadn't he run, because of the Daleks?

“Mister?”

A few of the children present had moved towards him, and he bit back a noise that might have been a snarl, if he had let it escape. Before the drums, he hadn't cared for people; when the drums had come, he certainly hadn't cared for them; now, unsure of who he was half of the time, he shouldn't be trusted with _children_.

Who let children near him?

They were impossibly small. The eldest of the three was forty at most, skeletal, looking as though she might pass out on her feet. The second was thirty, at the most, wide eyes staring out from a hollow face, arms and legs like matchsticks, holding an infant that couldn't be too many years younger than her.

“What?” he snapped, earning a few reproachful looks from those nearby.

He didn't like children.

“I thought the Daleks were supposed to be gone,” said the younger girl, staring up at him with those wide eyes. They were brown, like the fuzz of her hair on her scalp, like her skin, framed with long lashes, sunk deep into her skull. “Aren't they supposed to be gone?”

He remembered running from the War; that, at least, was vivid in his mind, despite all the gaps around it. He remembered being shown what his people had become, seeing Arcadia under siege, seeing the tangled mess of string and glue that Time itself had become, the Nightmare Child and the wraiths of the Could-Have-Beens and Never-Weres-- he had run, so very, very far.

And these children, here, they had stayed, for they had no other choice. They had lived through a hell which he had fled from at first glance.

“The ships attacking were gone,” he told them. It would be a disservice to soften the truth, here. People were supposed to console other people in a situation like this, right? “Daleks crashed on the planet stayed on the planet. But it's only one.”

Maybe, one. Possibly. For all their sakes, hopefully.

He wasn't even supposed to _be_ here. They didn't keep him in the medical sector, even when he refused to speak, to eat, and if he had simply _stayed_ in his rooms, he would have been fine. But he had seen the photo, and something had come loose in his mind-- _memories_ , he had some of his memories back, and he had gone walking, and seen that strange man, and he _knew_ that man--

Two and a half billion children. He'd caught the stray thought, projected loudly, unintentionally, and nobody else knew how many had died on that last day except for one.

It had been that last day, too, when Rassilon had tried to claw his way out of the Time Lock, and he had been the one to kill Rassilon. He hadn't meant to live. The drums had hurt. The silence after the drums hurt more. But the Time Lord had shoved his mind back into place and forced a regeneration, and he had been alive for months instead of a single day, and of course _he_ would have had something to do with it. Damn him.

Gallifrey _lived_.

Or, at least, it lived for now. A single Dalek against their remaining defenses was a battle which they were unlikely to win.

He had come here, with _him_ , and then _he_ had left, but he had stayed, and then there was a Dalek and cloister bells tolling and he was trapped with the staff and the elderly and the children.

He didn't _like_ children.

“Could you tell us a story, Mister?” The eldest child wobbled on her feet; one of her knees gave a moment later, and she sat heavily next to him, almost gray in color. The other two were quick to scramble up next to her, letting her lean on them. “The... they...”

“The matrons used to tell us stories,” said the younger girl, explaining what the older could not. “At the old shelter, before it burned. They told us stories whenever a raid came.”

The infant twisted in her lap to blink up at him. The robes he wore were too large. His collarbone jutted out from skin stretched taught.

“What's your name, Mister?” asked the younger girl.

Well, she was only a letter off.

 _Don't call me that. It isn't my name_.

Who even _knew_ , anymore?

Across the room, Imala, surrounded by no small number of children herself, was watching him. He wasn't looking at her, but he could tell. Or perhaps that was the glare of her great-granddaughter, the Lady Arkytior, dressed in plainclothes and waiting for the scans to come through so her prosthetic could be grown, resting at the side of the matriarch of the House of Sigma.

“Koschei,” he muttered, shifting away as subtly as possible. They were too close.

“Can you tell us a story where we win?” the oldest girl asked, little more than a whisper. “I like those stories. Those are happy stories.”

He just barely managed to keep his expression from curdling into disgust. Had the Time Lords won, had Rassilon got his way, there would have been no happy endings. Happy endings didn't exist. Gallifreyan didn't have a word for _always_ or _forever_.

Stories were, of course, just another type of lie, and he could remember that he had always been good at lying. To others, especially, but also to himself. Lies were easy.

He didn't like children.

“...There was a man who lived at the end of the universe,” he said, shifting slightly, leaning back against the wall behind him. He did not look at the children. “This man was a professor, and he was very old, and his job was to build a spaceship...”

* * *

The Doctor sauntered through the hallways of the Citadel. They were down far enough that there weren't any windows, and even had there been, Gallifrey's position in a parallel pocket universe left it with little natural daylight to speak of. The only light he had to see by was that which came from the emergency lights, dull orange glows casting dark shadows in all the corners, making it seem as though something was burning at the corner of his eye. He turned one corner, then another-- there were soldiers and guards rushing away in the opposite direction, weapons depleted, scrambling to safety.

There were others, he knew, who would place themselves between the Dalek and the unprotected, hoping if it wasted its firepower on them, there would be a chance others would be spared. Everyone involved there knew it was a futile effort. Daleks didn't run out of power.

Another corner, then another. The Dalek _should_ be-- aha! Yes, there it was. It had its back to him, trundling slowly down an empty corridor. At least, he assumed it was its back. Did Daleks have backs? They were sort of blob-like squid creatures, after all the mutations inflicted on them, so they didn't really have fronts or backs. Their armor did, certainly, but did that count? If it did, he'd need to say that the Dalek had the back of its armor towards him, and that was just a mouthful. Pain to say, took up too much time in his head.

The Dalek's eyestalk was facing away from him, regardless of whether it had a back or not.

“Hello!” he shouted to it, reminding himself every so often that he better not die or Romana would murder him, politics be damned. The rest of his mind was focused on words and keeping down the images which threatened to rise up at the sight of it, the same images that always tried to overwhelm him whenever he found out that somehow, _somehow_ , they were _still alive_ \-- “Mister Dalek! The Doctor will see you now.”

It spun around faster than a creature so heavily armored should be able to, advancing forwards, gun arm twisting toward him.

“ _The Doctor is detected!”_ it cried, picking up speed. _“Exterminate! Exterminate! Extermin--”_

“No, no-- _shut up_ ,” he scoffed, and it skidded to a halt, just feet away. He looked down his nose at it, unimpressed. “I've heard that spiel from you before, you know, but really, it's all just talk and no action. Not dead yet, am I? And you just don't know when to _stop_. Really, I met your Emperor, and he died at the will of a human girl! Tiny little thing, she was, and yet your Emperor turned to dust. Dalek Thay and Dalek Jast, they died because of humans-- their fault, really, since they were the ones that made alliances with a human, and Dalek Sec tried to _become_ a human, which makes me question your sanity even more than I normally do. Dalek Caan was the one to trick Davros, of all things!”

The Dalek did not move, though its humming seemed to grow louder. Its gun arm twitched restlessly. _“These names mean nothing! Explain! Explain!”_

“The Cult of Skaro?” he prompted lightly, and it seemed to register in the Dalek's databanks, because it promptly skidded backwards. Wary. _Frightened_. “And surely you've heard of the Emperor. I mean, he is your leader. Same with Davros. But then, I've also met your Prime Minister, so who really knows? Your grasp on politics and system of government is, quite frankly, deplorable. Don't know what I'd expect out of a Dalek. Anyway. Moving on!”

The Doctor started to pace, and the Dalek refrained from firing.

Words were his weapon. He'd never gone armed in the War.

“You're the last Dalek left on the planet,” he told it shortly. “At least, you're the last one still awake. Might be a couple more in hibernation, like you were, but you won't be able to wake them up unless you hunt them all down individually, and that's really not possible. And, outside the War, they're all dead. They _obliterated_ themselves in their own crossfire, making _you_ the only living Dalek on a planet of four billion Time Lords! And me-- _me_ , I'm the one in front of you.”

“ _Daleks do not surrender!”_

“No, they don't,” the Doctor agreed.

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver from a robe pocket and tossing it into the air, watched it spin, caught it to repeat the process. The Dalek watched him in the silence, twitching every so often. It still hadn't shot him.

“Your commanding officers are dead,” he told it. “You have no more orders. You're never going to _get_ any orders. So, really, you have two options. You surrender, here, now, or you die.”

“ _Daleks do not surrender!”_

It was old, battered. There were cracks in its armor, scorch marks. One of the lights on its head had shattered. Several of the spheres lining the sides of it were missing. Its eyestalk was bent; the plunger arm was too badly mangled to be of any use.

If the Doctor were a different man, if this _wretch_ of a creature hadn't killed more than five hundred of his people who were too young or too old or too badly injured to regenerate, he might have felt something like pity.

“This is _my_ home!” The Doctor took a step forward. The Dalek slid back even more. “I have lost this planet once; I have lost more than any living being could understand, than any _creature_ like you could possibly conceive, and I am _not_ going to lose it again, _do you understand me_?”

The Dalek shuddered. Its eyestalk jerked from side to side, spun around in a full circle with the scrape of metal on metal to assess its surroundings.

“ _My final orders were to destroy the Time Lords! Annihilation! Extermination!”_ it cried. _“I will follow orders!”_

“Those orders are _void_!” he shouted back, just as loud. “I am telling you, there is _nothing_ left. Scan. Go on, _scan_ , damn you! Your scanners are still operational, aren't they? Scan, you'll know I'm telling the truth. There is _nothing_ left.”

The Dalek shuddered again.

* * *

Romana turned as the doors to the room were pushed open again, two guards carrying a third person between them; the metallic scent of regeneration energy drifted through the air, and the figure coughed up a cloud of gold.

“I am _capable_ of walking on my own, soldiers,” she snapped.

The two guards shared a look over the woman's head, briefly panicked.

“Yes, ma'am,” said the one on the left, not letting go.

“Of course, ma'am,” agreed the one on the right, not letting go.

“Meaning no disrespect, ma'am,” the one on the left continued, helping her move slowly forward.

Neither of them stepped away until they were closer to a table, and the woman-- a good six inches shorter than her previous incarnation, dark-skinned, hair shaved close to her skull-- rested a hand on the nearest chair. “My Lady President,” she said hoarsely, looking up at the viewscreens with eyes that couldn't quite seem to focus.

“My Lady General,” Romana greeted with no small amount of concern. “Are you well to stay?”

“One hit from a Dalek will not keep me down for long, me Lady President. I am quite well.” She was breathing heavily, gold occasionally misting out on an exhale, but she straightened as best she could. “The defenses at Level Ten have been fortified, though we aren't sure how long we'll hold under direct assault. Level Nine was cleared completely; the Doctor entered nearly an hour ago to search for the Dalek--”

“My Lady President, something is happening!”

They all turned to the viewscreens, then, to the Dalek, facing off against the Doctor in a dimly-lit hallway. Neither party moved, and then the Dalek shuddered, and hovered uneasily off of the floor, and then--

\--well, and then there was nothing. Ash trickled to the floor. Romana blinked spots from her eyes at the sudden burst of light. The Doctor looked on for a few more moments before his head dropped slightly, and he turned and walked away without another word. In the back of the meeting room, where it had remained since the Doctor had parked it, the blue box which served as his TARDIS hummed a little bit louder, a mournful kind of noise, or maybe one of sympathy.

“They fear him,” the General murmured, sitting heavily.

“There was a saying about him, during the War,” one of the guards said, almost to himself. Romana fixed her gaze on him, and he went a little pale-- “Um, that is-- Lady President. I served with him, at Skull Moon. And there was a saying, ma'am. The first thing one notices about the Doctor of War is that he is unarmed, and for many, it will also be the last.”

“It listened to him,” she agreed at last, thinking of the earlier guard's words and turning away, her hearts feeling heavy. “He started talking, and it _listened_. They never listen. Ah, but he always was good at talking.”

“He mentioned-- the Cult of Skaro, ma'am?” Androgar said weakly. “He-- he _met_ them? And the Emperor, too?”

“Questions later, Androgar,” the General said to him. “Something tells me he won't be in the mood.”

* * *

Indeed, it was some time before the Doctor returned, well after the final meeting of the day had ended, when it was just Romana and a handful of others poring over datasheets just in case there was something crucial they had missed. Casualties, structural damage. The General, who Romana had suspected was dozing in her chair with eyes wide open, regeneration energy swirling absently above her skin, startled at the sound of the doors opening and closing, oddly loud in the silence.

Romana turned to the Doctor with a question in her eyes. He answered with a smile, painfully subdued. “They never seem to stop,” he said softly, and she nodded in sympathy. Having known the terrors of the Daleks in wartime, she could at least have some idea of how it must feel to see the threat return. “Cockroaches of the galaxy, they are.”

And, of course, it didn't surprise her that the Daleks had survived beyond the War. They had focused the bulk of their forces on Gallifrey, in the last days, but not every Dalek was centered around their planet. Romana chose not to comment on that.

“You saved us,” she said instead, as gentle as she could manage, trying to bring some light back into his expression. That hollow smile hurt her to see. “A single Dalek could destroy half the Citadel if given the chance. You've saved us all today, Doctor. Innumerable souls will live to see tomorrow.”

Her words had the opposite of their intended effect; something twisted in his face, something old and agonized and terribly dark. Pain, beyond knowing. “Two point four-seven,” he said.

The General blinked at him slowly. “I'm sorry, what?”

“Two point four-seven billion,” the Doctor repeated, sounding impatient, something in his tone bordering on manic. “Population of Gallifrey at the end of the Time War, according to the last census taken, was four point oh-nine-eight billion, and the number of children in that population was two point four-seven billion. If you want to get into specifics, that would be four billion, ninety-seven million, nine hundred and seven thousand, four hundred and forty-two, and two billion, four hundred and seventy-two million, one hundred and eighty thousand, two hundred and sixty-eight--”

His words had grown faster, coming so quick he was starting to stumble over them; his hands shook at his sides, though he tried to hide them in the fabric of his sleeves. Then he came to an abrupt halt, expression suddenly brittle, sucking in a gasp of air. He did not look at anyone. “So, ah... hardly immeasurable. That is, if they could be counted. Which they were. So.”

And before Romana could ask more questions, or begin to process all of the things implied by his words, he was turning and hurrying back to his TARDIS, announcing something about repairs before the doors shut behind him and they could no longer hear what he was saying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It really is on the up and up from here, cross my hearts. But honestly, this is my favorite chapter out of all of them, with the potential exception of the last one. 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, and if you want to come chat over the series ten premiere, you can find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our resident renegades have a civil conversation _and_ they actually know who they're talking to. Proud of those two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
> **I am so sorry.**  
>  _
> 
>  
> 
> Needless to say, the past six weeks have been, um. Interesting. Let's go with that. In combination with a lack of inspiration, the result of these two things was the absence of any new chapter over here. I'm going to be graduating June 2 (!!!!!) so the next few weeks are also going to be interesting, in their own right, but I _should_ be able to get new chapters up weekly starting Saturday, May 27th.
> 
> Thank you all so so so much for being patient with me. I know a few of you have been asking after chapters and I've failed to meet my predicted deadlines with each response, so. Yeah. Thank you.
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: mentions of the Dalek attack in the last chapter, from the perspective of Arkytior.

Arkytior had always liked her great-grandmother. She had few memories of the older woman from before the War, but even her grandfather, as snappish and short-tempered as he had been, had spoken fondly of her, and he was a man whose respect was difficult to earn.

Admiral of the War and seasoned fighter, she had never felt quite as off-kilter as she did now, even in the Firefields, when there was nothing but smog too thick to see through and the dead and the dying and her shoulder feeling strangely light with no arm attached to it – this was waiting, which she knew well, but they were trapped. There was no out, and there was a definite threat, and there was nothing she could do to protect those around her as was her duty. There were too many children. But her great-grandmother-- a near-stranger to her, willing to sit at her side while her grandfather was busy all the same, utterly calm in the face of what would likely be their deaths.

“Where is Grandfather?” she asked, voice little more than a whisper in the silence that pressed down on them, heavy like a shroud. Imala tilted her head to one side in thought; when she spoke, her words were just as soft.

“Likely with the Lady President. Have you spoken to him?”

“He--”

 _Oh, Kyt. I stole the Moment_.

“--told me what he did. Intended to do. We drank tea. I haven't seen him since.”

Imala hummed quietly in response. “War makes demons of the best of us.”

Oh, she knew. She knew quite well.

It was quiet, almost to the point of being unbearable. There were some children settling down near the Master-- she glared at him from time to time, though inwardly, she was pleased when he started to look uncomfortable at the number of people around him. He had been a kind man, once, and she knew of how one's own thoughts could drive one to madness-- having seen the things she had seen, and having done the things she had done, she didn't hold him accountable for his past actions, but he had _fled_. The renegade Time Lord with more blood on his hands than any of them at the start of the War, and _he_ _ **ran**_ before the fighting had even reached its peak.

Cowardly.

Arkytior glared at him once more for good measure, though he seemed to actually be holding a conversation this time, before closing her eyes and resting her head back against the wall. This was waiting. She knew very much of waiting, and of war, and of Daleks in the War.

It wasn't as though its firepower would ever run out, but it took time to plow through bodies stacked before it. She and others could still buy time for the children to escape further, if needs must.

* * *

He wanted to go and see the children. Clear his head. Reassure himself that those two and a half billion little ones were all still there, remind himself that the War was over, now, even if they still had a long way to go-- his footsteps took him down through the medical sector, resettled with efficiency following the horrors of the day, and off to where the three children from the Wastelands had been staying. But he found that he wasn't alone when he got there; the man from before, with the gaunt frame and the dark red hair, was sitting pensive in a chair angled towards the door as though he were guarding the three, fingers steepled. The young ones had crawled into the same bed instead of taking the space available to them, a tangle of tired limbs.

“Sorry--” he began, already turning to leave, but the stranger sighed.

“You'd think we would know how to recognize each other by now.”

The Doctor blinked. The stranger glanced over, looking just as tired as he felt on his good days, nothing compared to how he felt know, and tapped the tips of his index fingers together, the noise not audible but the rhythm present all the same. _Tap-tap-tap-tap._

Something settled in his chest.

“I should've guessed you survived,” he said, and sat down in the chair opposite with a huff. “Rassilon, dead-- who else?”

“And _I_ should have guessed you'd be the one to drag these three out of the Wastelands when the planet is under lockdown,” the Master snapped back. “How the hell did you even do it?”

“Time and hope and mad luck.”

“...Of course.”

There was a long stretch of silence. The Master turned his gaze away, back to the children-- and the Doctor might have been worried, probably _should_ have been worried, but he felt no danger in the situation. He knew that tired gaze; he wore it himself, often enough.

“I have... been asked to attend meetings with the Lady President,” the Master said at long length, sounding as though the words pained him. “They require technological help, so I've been told.”

“You have!” He sounded a little more surprised than he should have, and the Master glanced over again. “You would think, to avoid problems, they might have told one of us about the other beforehand?”

“Heavens only know how the minds of Time Lords function.” He spread his hands out briefly. “It's not as though ours were ever the same as the rest.”

“Fair enough.”

Another long pause.

“Your granddaughter is here.”

“Yes-- I spoke to her.”

“Ah.”

“How did you--?”

“She glared at me. We were in the same sector during the attack.”

“...I see.”

The Doctor went still. The Master frowned at him.

“If you're going to throw your own pity party, do it somewhere else. It took them hours to fall asleep.”

“I-- needed to see them. To know.”

“Ah.” He continued to frown, but something like understanding drifted through the empty space between them, the glimmer of a thought. “Two-point-four-seven billion. I remember.”

“I'd forgotten I told you.”

“And yet you remember that you counted.”

“How could I forget?”

The Master let out a short huff of air; he did not turn to look at the Doctor, but the impression of a derisive gaze resting upon him was heavily implied. “You needn't stay to keep an eye on either of us. They're here and safe, and I've nothing I can do to cause the chaos I'm sure you're picturing.”

“Perhaps we could consider the incredibly remote possibility that I'm not actually here to keep an eye on any of you.”

Not that they would ever say it aloud, either of them, but there was no true _hatred_ between them, and there never had been. A mutual distrust that frequently merged into dislike, but hatred, despite what it might seem from an outside perspective, had never existed.

“Hm,” said the Master, and they lapsed into a silence which stretched for hours.

* * *

Romana had her attention split for the first quarter of the meeting, before it descended, as the meetings of the Time Gentry tended to do, into inevitable shouting and heated arguments. Not only did she need to keep an eye on the assembled politicians, manipulating things so that they might come to a conclusion faster, might actually cooperate, making sure that there were no factions who stood in opposition to her plans-- she had survived numerous assassination attempts in the past two years, and she had no desire to deal with the chaos of another one-- but she also had to make sure that the Doctor and the Master were kept civil.

Neither of them seemed surprised to see the other, and given their shared propensity for survival despite overwhelming odds against them, she had somewhat expected that reaction. And, as the meeting progressed, they kept the jabs at one another to a minimum; still, she expected something explosive of the two all the same. The only reason they were in the same room at the same time to begin with was that they had the intelligence and ingenuity to get the planet out of this universe faster and back into the one from which it had come-- not a plan anyone had been especially pleased about, but necessary all the same.

Of course, it took a quarter of the meeting for rebuttals of proposed plans to turn to dressing-downs of one's logical processes to turn to insults at one's pride, and then her attention was solely focused on returning order to the assembled group.

“I _hated_ politics,” the Doctor said to his former friend turned former enemy. Someone had evidently had the bright idea to seat them next to one another, which under most circumstances would have ended terribly, but their lives were on the line-- historically speaking, that was the time in which they would actually cooperate without much problem. “Never understood how my mother could stand it.”

“...Imala is a patient woman.”

“She really is, isn't she? Did you know no one told me she was alive?”

Further down the table, Androgar made a bold comment towards the General, who promptly turned and started berating him, her eyes blazing. Romana could be seen to rest her head in her hands for a moment or two.

“No one told either of us the other was alive.”

“Yes, but they were hardly expecting matricide or filicide out of us.”

“A valid point.”

The Master had been spoken to for hours and hours every day without end until the medical workers had concluded that his mental state wasn't their top priority – not that it ever had been, he knew. And because he, much like the Doctor, could think outside the box in a way most Time Lords never managed to and was generally regarded as brilliant in his chosen fields of study, they wanted him in the meetings to look over theories for terraforming and rebuilding and processes for moving Gallifrey out of its pocket universe.

He did think, however, that whoever had decided to have him working with the Doctor needed _their_ mental state evaluated.

They were friends turned enemies turned not-quite-friends with a very brief and temporary truce over a common enemy. It had been hundreds of years since the Doctor had seen him, and yet, for the Master, it had been a meager handful of years. At most, they could cooperate with one another when their lives were in immediate danger – which, admittedly, this situation fell into – and even those times had been strained with mistrust and a mutual wariness.

“Your hair looks ridiculous,” said the Master, eying the Doctor's hair with a critical gaze. “And your chin.”

...But even then, he wasn't sure what he would have done had he actually managed to kill the man. He had always been certain that the Doctor could never kill him.

“I would say the same for you, but unfortunately, your taste in fashion is impeccable as ever,” the Doctor huffed. “Dull and boring, but at least you can say that it's formal. Tell me, do you wear anything _other_ than black?”

The Master's eyes narrowed, but the lack of response was telling. He ignored the jab and changed the track of conversation entirely. “Do you think that we could use a set of-- say, a dozen, for convenience's sake-- a dozen TARDISes positioned at equidistant points around the planet, lower atmostphere, running coordinate formulas through each console simultaneously to open a rift in time and shift the planet back through? We know where Kasterborous is, after all-- the problem is finding the right universe to break back into.”

The Doctor blinked. Then, he smiled. “Background equations on fields, of course, keep the planet from shaking apart in the cosmic winds-- gravitational stability, too, and more force to ensure proper orbital speed. Tricky bit of science to make sure we stay put between the binary suns.”

“ _Pah_. Child's play. We invented black holes, or have you forgotten?”

“ _And_ for finding the right universe-- well, it's a long story, I can tell you when we get back to my TARDIS, but there should be scarring around the walls that separate it from here, thinner points, I think we can track those--”

“ _What the hell did you even do_.” It was less of a question and more of an incredulous statement, the Master staring at the Doctor even as he snapped his fingers in the air, and a rectangular crack appeared in the side of one of the dozens of columns which lined the meeting hall, sliding open like a door to show a dark room on the inside, much bigger than the outside of the column would seemingly allow for.

Not a one of the Time Lords were paying attention to Gallifrey's wayward children.

“It wasn't _my_ fault,” he protested, even as they turned to walk towards the TARDIS, ducking to avoid the particularly irate gestures of a Time Lady dressed in senatorial robes. “Why are you asking _me_ what I've done, anyway-- you stole a TARDIS and put it in the meeting room where the _Lady President_ regularly works from.”

“I didn't steal it; this is _my_ TARDIS.” The lights around the console flickered on as he stepped through the doorway, the Doctor following suit, and the engines creaked with a low hum. “Like I would take my own TARDIS when I left! If they'd caught me, it would have been quarantined.”

“You stole _a_ TARDIS, then.”

“So did you, idiot, and that stolen TARDIS is also parked in the same room where the Lady President regularly works from.” The Doctor glared; the Master just raised an eyebrow in response. “Tell me I'm wrong.”

“You're _not_ , but--”

“Shush-- I'll man the computer, you write, there's paper and a pen somewhere by the bookshelves.”

The Doctor made a face at the elaborate calligraphy pen typically used by the Time Lords, the only writing utensil to be found on the dust-covered tables stacked high with equally dusty books, and pulled a mechanical pencil out of his pocket along with a couple of notebooks and a pair of reading glasses which had once belonged to an old friend; the notebooks went on the table, and the pencil was tucked up behind one ear, and he pushed the glasses up onto his nose. “ _Fine_ then,” he muttered, but, like most of there jibes had been as of late, it lacked most of the bite and anger which it might have once carried. “No need to get snippy with me.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doctor + Master vs. Time Lord Politics. Also, birds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is!! Another weekly update!!! I think I'm maybe tentatively back on schedule, how about that.
> 
> (and if any one of the few of you who happen to be subscribed to this story also happen to be at the CCYWC writer's conference, give me a shout in the comments)
> 
> ((and!! I just broke 100,000 words on AO3!!!!!)

Viram sat quiet at the foot of Tianna's bed. The room was quiet, but it was a different kind of quiet than anything he had been used to. Quiet at the shelter had meant a raid; quiet in their den had meant everything was normal, and they were still alone. Quiet was different here. It only got quiet at night, when everyone was sleeping.

Very, very quiet.

He hopped from the mattress to the floor, crawling to peer under the bed. The Daleks had made tunnels, before. The matrons had warned about it at the shelter. The ground would rumble and hum and crack at the surface where they would break through. The ground here wasn't cracked, but he had to check. Quiet meant a raid was coming.

 _You have to stay quiet_. _Quiet, or they'll find you._

Iota had a bed of her own. Viram had a little crib. The man who had brought them to the Citadel brought it to their room, when he found out where they were staying. It had lullabies carved into the sides (one of the matrons had read them out, since Viram only sort of knew his letters) and little cut-out shapes hanging above it. The man who had brought them to the Citadel said it was supposed to be a crib for someone much younger than Viram, but Viram was very small, so he could sleep in it.

He didn't know why they all needed separate beds. They took up less space with one. Iota didn't even sleep in hers. She slept with Tianna, and Viram slept between them both. When they slept at all, at least. They were too soft, the beds, and the little crib was too far away.

He crawled back out from under the bed, then went to check the others. They were safe, too. Nothing was rumbling or cracked.

Something moved in the hall, and he startled, but it was just another one of the matrons coming to look in on them. The man got a strange expression when he saw Viram on the floor, and Iota curled up at Tianna's side, but he didn't say anything or try to move them, like some of the others did.

“Checking under the beds?” he asked. Viram nodded, once. “My husband does that, too. Served in the army. It's all right, though-- the Citadel is safe. You can rest easy, here.”

Viram didn't believe the man. There had been a Dalek, and alarms, which meant it still wasn't safe. The man walked in, picked Viram up, and set him back down with his two sisters.

“Try and get some sleep, now. If everyone here's well enough, I'm going to see if I can get permission to take you closer to the surface. There was birdsong, earlier today! I think you'd like to hear that, wouldn't you?”

The man smiled at Viram, and Viram blinked back at the man, and the man dimmed the lights for him and left, sliding the door shut behind him.

Viram hopped off the bed and checked the floors again. Just in case.

He didn't know what birdsong was. Songs about birds? He had never seen a bird that wasn't dead. But the man seemed happy, which meant it was good, right?

* * *

Outside the city was a cold kind of place, empty-- not as much as the Desolations, even for those taking apart the Citadel's great dome, piece by piece, high above. Still, cold and dark and empty was better than fire and smoke, better than the scream of Dalek ships as they hurtled through the air. It was a lonely and daunting task, but far preferable to the alternatives.

Miles up, crawling over the metal support strut, shutting down the power lines which maintained the stasis field over a portion of the glass alloy – the field served to keep the dome from collapsing under its own weight, but it had been badly damaged, and the alloy had shattered; as it still tried to operate at capacity, they had to disable it part by part to remove sections of the dome without causing the whole thing to collapse – a worker froze, eyes wide, mouth gaping.

“Lunartik!” she hissed, not daring to move, to breathe. “Lunartik!”

Further down, another worker cursed and pressed herself into a shadow cast by the spotlights of their equipment and a metal outcrop. “What?” she shouted, gripping tightly to a multitool.

The first worker cringed, but that which had caught her attention remained undisturbed by the noise. “Quiet! _Listen_.”

The second, wary, crept out from the shadow and began to make the climb up to her coworker. “Haydia, is it another crawler?”

“Shh!”

A moment later, they both heard it. Lunartik's multitool fell from suddenly limp fingers, saved from a plummet into the miles of empty space beneath them by the localized grav-fields which kept them from danger. Haydia clapped her hands over her mouth to hold back a laugh, joy bordering on hysteria.

The small flock which had settled a way's up the support strut from them twittered and chirped to one another, tiny wings flapping about, birdsong ringing clear in the silence.

* * *

“That was... unproductive.”

The General wasn't making any sort of expression – she had never been the type to emote – but her hand kept straying toward her sidearm, fingers twitching. “Mm,” she said, noncommittal.

The Time Gentry in attendance had cleared out from the room, and when Romana was certain that it was just the three of them – herself, the General, and Androgar, ever-faithful and seemingly ever-present – left, she sank into a chair, lifting the presidential collar from her shoulders and dropping it onto the table in front of her with a _clang_. The metal of the headpiece did not dent; the table gained a new set of scuff marks. “Did anyone find out where the Doctor or the Master disappeared to?”

“No, my Lady President,” Androgar replied promptly.

“Have there been any reports of disruptions?”

“None bar the usual, my Lady President.”

“Well, they aren't at each other's throats. That has to count for something.”

She let herself slump forward, just for an instant, exhausted.

“I... I did receive a transmission, ma'am, from one of the work forces sent up to repair the dome--”

“If this is bad news, Androgar,” the General said icily, “perhaps it can wait.”

Romana sighed. “Your intentions are appreciated, my Lady General, but unnecessary. If it _is_ bad news, it cannot.”

“Well-- that's just it, ma'am.” Androgar seemed-- almost excited, dare she say? “It's not. Bad news, that is. Ma'am. There was a flock of birds, my Lady President, and birdsong. And further reports from some of the quarters closer to the surface corroborates it, ma'am! That means the terraforming is working, if the birds are coming back.”

She blinked once, slowly, then turned to look at him. Yes, that was excitement. He was smiling. Her jaw ached when she mirrored the expression, but then again, she had little cause to smile in a long time.

“Birdsong,” the General murmured, looking thoughtful. “Do you know, I think I've nearly forgotten what it sounds like...”

* * *

“After a thousand years, I would think that you would remember to take breaks when you're working on a project.”

“Old habits die hard,” the Master responded, not looking up. “As, for that matter, do I.”

Imala stood in the doorway to the Master's TARDIS; both Master and Doctor were seated on the floor of the console room, surrounded by papers and holograms and innumerable sets of calculations. Neither of them looked very much put-together, robes rumpled in that distinctive way which meant they had been worn for a few days in a row, bleary-eyed.

The Doctor blinked slowly, as though he was coming out of a trance, and squinted at his watch through his glasses. “Oh,” he said, sounding slightly surprised but not quite focused enough to put any effort in it. “Hm.”

“Have you eaten?” Imala prompted.

“He never eats when he's working,” the Master said, crossing out an entire page of numbers written impossibly small, crumpling it into a ball, and tossing it into a steadily growing pile accumulating underneath the console platform. “Can't input an equation without knowing what to _track_...”

“Neither do you,” the Doctor retorted, returning to a diagram with eight different axes and several different equations to graph.

“You're old. I do believe your memory's gone faulty.”

“And if my son is old, then what does that make me?” Imala asked.

The Master managed to get to his feet in a dignified manner, despite being smudged with ink and still quite blatantly exhausted. “As radiant as ever, Lady Imala.”

She raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, and pointedly cleared her throat. The Doctor scrambled up to his feet in an instant, looking contrite.

“The Lady President wishes to speak with the two of you,” she informed them. “Though, perhaps... under more organized conditions?”

The Master glanced down at all of their papers, then over to the Doctor, who tilted his head ever so slightly to one side before nodding. “We think we have a plan.”

“Good. More than they managed to come up with in the past months.” She shook her head, slow, and turned to head out. “Theta, remind me why I ever returned to politics...?”

When she had left, the two Time Lords regarded one another. For once, they had no desire to antagonize the other; the Master's drums had left, and the blood they demanded was something no longer necessary; the Doctor had long since accepted that he could never return to the childhood he and his former friend had once had, though he had yet to stop hoping, but he knew better than to press the matter when so much resided on their continued cooperation.

“You know she'll never let you,” the Master felt obliged to point out.

The Doctor shrugged. “I don't think she has much of a choice. Besides, better me than you.”

“You think _I_ want the Moment?” He made a derisive sound. “I want to leave this planet, nothing more.”

“...It _is_ home, Koschei.”

“Not for centuries, _Theta_ ,” he bit out. “And you and I both know that as soon as she has her legs underneath her again, you'll be leaving Gallifrey far behind you.”

They fell silent, continuing to watch the other, unmoving.

“We can,” the Doctor said, and then his voice faltered. He took a few seconds, tried again. “We can, at least, agree that our-- that the planet-- should be helped.”

The Master clasped his hands behind his back. His expression did not soften-- even before the drums had really taken hold, even when he had been young, he had not and had never been a man who could be described as _soft_ , but his voice was, perhaps, just a little bit quieter. “Of course.”

The Doctor couldn't stop himself from smiling, and the Master made a disgusted noise, turning on his heel and starting away.

“ _Only_ because I need a way out of this damn place!”

If anything, the smile just grew, and the Doctor started gathering up papers. “I wouldn't _dare_ to suggest otherwise.”

* * *

Romana looked at them, that same kind of politician-y glare which the Doctor had been expecting (yet had not received) upon his arrival to the planet. It was carefully constructed, quite blank, but her eyes betrayed her emotions, and she had let her guard down ever so slightly now that most of the other leaders had left; it was just himself, the Master, and the General in the meeting room. She splayed her hands out in an almost helpless gesture-- she was anything but helpless, he knew, but they were running out of options.

“Have the two of you discovered anything more substantial?” she asked, weary. “I do not doubt that our scientists and technicians will be able to construct a path for our planet into the correct universe, given time, but the fact of the matter is that _we have none_.”

The Master took a half-step forward; the General's hand tensed slightly at her side, near her sidearm. The Master ignored her. The Doctor rocked back and forth on his heels and bit his tongue, only cutting into the explanation when the Master started to get a bit too crude or stopped making sense, something which happened significantly less than it would have if the Doctor had been the one speaking.

When he finished, Romana was silent, invested in her thoughts, and the General's expression could best be described as horrified.

“You wish to--” she began incredulously, staring at Romana when the Lady President held up her hand for silence. “Ma'am, surely you cannot--”

“You wish to use the Moment to assist in the calculations,” she said, voice betraying nothing.

“Yes,” the Master agreed.

“The _Galaxy Eater_ ,” the General said, gaping at them. “The machine created to _destroy_.”

“Yes,” the Doctor said with a nod, at the same time as Romana's sharp glare turned sideways to her second-in-command. The General went silent yet again.

“Explain it to me again. Slowly. Just to make sure I didn't mishear you.”

“The Moment is capable of opening small time tunnels into the outside world,” the Doctor said, “seemingly without needing any input from an outside source! Furthermore, it broke through time-locked events to create those time tunnels. It's sentient, so it can be reasoned with.”

“Using the Moment to calculate what we would need to expand a rip in space-time large enough to shift a planet through would, based on our math, be faster than if we harnessed every TARDIS on the planet to run those same calculations simultaneously.” Whereas the Doctor had spoken with excitement in his voice, the Master simply stated facts, impassive. “You said so yourself, you don't have time. This planet needs its suns to orbit around, and trade off-world, and aid sent before its children, who survived a War by the skin of their teeth, slowly starve.”

“My _Lord_ Master, I must question the validity of your knowledge regarding the War, considering that you _did not fight in it_.”

Romana opened her mouth; the Doctor had no qualms about physically dragging the Master back to stand next to him, and thus a few precious feet away from the General, interjecting before things could get any worse.

“If there was an option I thought you would like better, I would at least suggest it,” he said gently. “Not that it would be as good as this one, mind. But this is our best, our _only_ , option.”

The General just continued to stare at them-- angry at the Master, and the dislike there was mutual; incredulousness, for the most part directed at the Doctor. Romana's eyes closed briefly.

“If you think it will work,” she sighed. “If you think it will work, then yes-- _if and only if_.” The Doctor had started to bounce a bit, and she glared until he had stilled once more. “You must work with another team of technicians when interacting with the Moment; you must submit the entirety of your plan, down to the last detail, for review before implementing it; you _will_ allow the General to be present when interacting with the Moment.”

“My Lady President--” all three said, at the exact same time, in the exact same tone, but she cut them off.

“Should you wish to tell the courts of Gallifrey that its two renegades are going to be entrusted with free reign over the planet's continued well-being and be completely unsupervised while doing so, you are _more_ than welcome to try!”

Much as with the Doctor, when Romana began to shout, it was in everyone's best interests to listen.

“Yes, ma'am,” said the Doctor.

“Understood,” said the Master.

“...As you wish, my Lady President,” said the General.

“ _Good_.” She let out a sharp huff of air, staring down her nose at them all, every inch her role as ruler. “The two of you will have a fleet of TARDISes at your disposal. My Lord General, if you would send an escort with the Doctor to retrieve the Moment, when the time comes?”

“...Yes, my Lady President.”

“My Lord Master, I will need to know how many TARDISes you require before ceding control of them to you.”

He held out a dataslide wordlessly; she took it with a nod and tucked it under one arm, the thin slate disappearing into the folds of her robes.

“My Lord Doctor...” she looked wearily at her old friend. He looked back. “Any improvising from the plan submitted, and I _will_ have you exiled, do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma'am!” he agreed, with a salute just a bit too sloppy to be appropriate, though he didn't doubt from the expression on her face that she wouldn't hesitate to follow through on her words.

It was not the most friendly of alliances, all things considered – not with the Master and the General in frequent contact – but, just maybe, it was going to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you very much for reading, and I hope that you enjoyed!! Comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> For writerly ramblings, backstory, and meta, come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan to use the Moment to move Gallifrey doesn't quite go as expected.
> 
> (the Moment reaaaaaaally likes to mess with people. not much to do, when you're a box. things get kinda boring.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to my successful graduation from high school
> 
> here's to another four years of not knowing what I'm doing

The Doctor was willing to ignore the guards on either side of him, more focused on the box which was set before them all. It was still ticking and clicking away in the shadows of the Omega Arsenal; Romana had given him permission to come down here, yes, but the General had insisted on armed guards being present with him at all times, and she herself would oversee all interaction with the Moment as it was used to help calculate what would need to be done to bring Gallifrey back to its place in the stars.

Though, the interface hadn't appeared, and he'd been standing there talking at it for a good minute or so. He could go for longer, of course. But it was embarrassing! All his talk about sentient machines, and the one he had said told him it was _lonely_ wasn't responding when he came to visit.

He glanced back at the guards to make sure they weren't getting impatient, then glanced back for a longer look before he had fully turned all the way around again. His face scrunched up a bit. “You lot and your guns,” he muttered. “Stop it with the guns! It won't hurt you.”

Instead of looking reassured, like he had hoped, the guards tensed and readjusted their grip on the weapons. There were six of them, three to the left and three to the right, and to a one, they all looked frightened, staring at something over the Doctor's shoulder with wide eyes.

“Ah!” The Doctor turned back around and smiled. “Hello, there! Good to see you again.”

“And you, Time Lord.” The Moment, for this occasion, wore the face of Jack Harkness, although he was still wearing the clothes which Not-Amy had been wearing when the Doctor had met the interface back in the Desolations. He sat up on the pedestal, leaning on the small box, entirely unconcerned about the increasingly nervous soldiers. “Didn't expect you to come and visit quite so soon.”

“Well, you know me!” The Doctor shrugged, turned around again to shoot a pointed look at the guards that he _hoped_ conveyed something like 'please, for the love of Gallifrey and everything on it, do not do something stupid right now,' and turned back to smile at Not-Jack. “Always full of surprises. And actually, here for a favor.”

The Moment raised an eyebrow. “Using your first visit to ask for a favor? God, Doc, you'd be horrible on a date.”

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up, you. Theoretically, taking on the appearance of someone shouldn't mean taking on their characteristics.”

The Moment shrugged one shoulder. “Yes, but it's fun! Now, what's this favor of yours?” Then, dropping the facade of Jack Harkness, sitting up straight, a hint of gold in his eyes: “I hope you'll be reasonable.”

Unsure of what to think of a weapon with a concept of fun, and more than a little bit aware of the steely tone which underlay the Moment's words, the not-so-subtle warning, the Doctor smiled faintly. “No worries,” he answered. “You were able to open time tunnels that brought me and my past selves through the time lock. Back to events which should have been impossible to access.”

The Moment stared at him, watching, unblinking. “I was able. I still am.”

“Well, I was-- _we_ were, really, myself and the Lady President-- and! Thank you for showing me that other face. It was from my future, quite useful for recognizing strangers one has yet to meet.” The Doctor smiled a little bit wider; the Moment flickered briefly into the form of the Master before flickering back, expression unchanging. “Anyway, yes. Gallifrey is trapped here. I was able to run the calculations to bring it here over the course of centuries, but the planet doesn't have that long. You're the most sophisticated piece of technology on the planet...”

“Do you remember when I said that if I ever developed an ego, you would get the job?” the Moment interrupted, and the Doctor paused in his flattery. “Sentience requires some degree of intellect, my Lord Doctor. If you wish to ask a favor, come straight out and ask it. Or perhaps you have been spending too much time with the politicians?”

The Moment shook his head and hopped down from the pedestal, gesturing to the box which remained. “I can run your numbers for you.”

The Doctor's smile turned relieved, and he lifted the box in both hands. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” The Moment returned the smile, a little more calm than before, and the expression was so very much like Jack's that the Doctor felt his hearts ache. “I expect a real visit next time, Doc, got that? Ah, but it'll be nice to hear the universe sing again...”

And as if he had never been there, the interface vanished, leaving the Doctor to wander back down the hall, Moment in hand, several confused and slightly wary guards trailing along behind him.

“They said the fool was mad,” one muttered to the soldier next to her. “Machines can't be sentient.”

“It had a sense of humor,” another echoed faintly.

“Would you lot stop chatting and pick up the pace?” the Doctor shouted over his shoulder, sounding cross. “I can still hear you, you know!”

* * *

The three shuffled down one of the Citadel's many hallways, far above the medical sector, corridors abandoned and devoid of life. The windows up here had been removed, so as not to be dangerous, but not replaced, and ash that had blown in stirred with a low breeze and the pad of their footsteps.

“Are we supposed to be walking here?” Iota asked.

Tianna had her hand on the younger girl's shoulder, grip not quite enough to be painful, doing her best to maintain her balance as they plodded along, pace slow, stopping every so often so that she could catch her breath. “No one stopped us,” she said, sounding unconcerned. “It's the Citadel. The Citadel's safe.”

“But there was a Dalek,” Iota replied.

Viram, teetering along and holding Iota's hand, broke off to pat the floor, leaving handprints in the gray. He looked back up at them, wide blue eyes, patting a few more times for emphasis.

“None of them are coming through the floor, you're right,” Tianna agreed. “If the matrons didn't want us to leave, they would have told us before. Or someone would have stopped us before we got here.”

“But the matrons got upset when you tried to leave your room for water.”

“I was alone when I did that. Now neither of us are alone, so it's okay. Always supposed to travel in groups.”

They kept walking, Viram crawling back to take Iota's hand once more, only stopping when they turned a corner and found a dead end, the transport tubes lining one wall dim and inactive. The windows on the opposite wall overlooked the rest of the Citadel, the repair ships and their workers tiny specks up by the dome and its supports, more of them clearing away the Wastelands. The mountains beyond were rubble and pillars of flame, but even those seemed like they were fading, burning out.

“I thought the smoke would be gone by now,” Iota said, lifting up Viram so that he could see better.

“There's a lot of fire.” Tianna shrugged, averted her gaze, shoulders tensing. Iota glanced up, thought for a few moments, then picked something she knew was likely to distract her.

“Do you think we'll get to see Mister Theta again? Or Mister Koschei?”

Tianna blinked once, twice, rapid. Pulled herself back together. “Mister Theta has been by to visit. I hope Mister Koschei comes again. He told nice stories when we were scared.”

“Do you think there really is a Time Lord at the end of the universe? With a rocket to bring the people to a better place?”

“Mister Koschei said there was.” Tianna turned, starting to shuffle back down the hall, back the way they had come. “I didn't think the matrons' stories were real. With the trees, and the water. Without a War. But they told stories where we won, and the Daleks are gone, and we're still here. So maybe there is a man at the end of the universe with a rocket, and he's going to fly Gallifrey back home.”

“What if there's...?” Iota started, eyes wide, sounding excited, but she stopped when she couldn't think of the word that she wanted. She looked down at Viram, then up at Tianna. “What the matrons told us about? In the sky? But not the ships or the guns or the smoke.”

“The suns?” Tianna suggested, but Iota shook her head back and forth. “Stars?”

“Stars!” the younger girl cheered. “Those! What do you think they look like?”

“I don't know,” she said, thinking. “The matrons said they were small and bright and beautiful, and there were too many to count.”

“I'd like to see the stars. Viram? Would you like to see the stars?”

The little boy nodded, smiling. The children turned a corner and stopped for another break; Tianna needed to take a moment and breathe, even though they had only been going for a few minutes. They couldn't see the mountains through these windows, at least not the ones which still burned.

“I wonder if anyone has ever seen all of the stairs?” Tianna asked between breaths. “Maybe Mister Koschei can tell us about them, if we see him again.”

“He's probably seen a lot of stars,” Iota agreed. “He and Mister Theta.”

“I'd like to see stars, too.”

It was hard to reconcile the planet they now lived on with the planet they had known their entire lives. But it was equally hard to reconcile both of those planets with the Gallifrey from the matrons stories, a place where the air was quiet and clear and there had never ever even _been_ a War. And, if the stories were true, if what everyone had been saying was true, then the Gallifrey they had known and the Gallifrey that was now and the Gallifrey that had come from the mysterious Before-- if the stories were true, those really were all the same planet.

There had been a Gallifrey that had not known War.

It was hard to reconcile that, too. Tianna thought it was unfair, that there had been a time when the planet had not known War, when War was all _they_ – they themselves, with access to time travel! – had ever known. But they were hardly alone in that, and, she reluctantly acknowledged, there was no longer War around them, either.

Perhaps soon there would not be fire. They could see the sky when it was not clouded with smoke, when it was lit by the suns and the moon and the stars, small and bright and beautiful, too many to count.

She didn't know what such a world would be like, and the idea of the unknown scared her, no matter how nice it seemed. But perhaps soon there would not be fire, and perhaps then things would be better.

* * *

His name was spoken.

The Doctor froze; _that_ name was not written down, and only known by one other person still living, but the voice was not the voice of his mother's, or of anybody else that he recognized. It came from everywhere at once and yet nowhere at all, both inside his head, whispering in his thoughts, and outside of it, making the air around him tremble with the force of it. It was beyond description-- and yet he could not help but think that it was tinged with something like _worry_.

His name was spoken a second time, more insistent, and then the presence was gone. He was alone in a hallway, weak light from skies of twilight filtering in through the windows.

His _name_... He had just spoken to his mother, not an hour ago, and the only person who knew of _that_ name aside from her was himself, and the words were locked up tight inside his mind... inside _his_ mind.

His eyes widened, and he broke into a run.

* * *

“The _only_ persons authorized to interact with the Moment on this project are the Doctor and the Master, and only with the General present.” The Lady President's voice was cold and unforgiving, and the handful of technicians who had begun to take apart the weapon trembled at the sound of it, as did the guards who allowed them in. “Without at least two of the three of them present, not a _one_ of you should have been allowed in here. _All of you_ are aware of this.”

One of the technicians took in a slight breath and opened his mouth. The Lady President glared at him until he shut it again and stared at his feet with intense focus.

“All of you are to be confined to your quarters, under guard, until further notice. I want _none_ of your explanations or excuses until then, _am I understood_?” There was silence. “ _ **Well**_?”

“Yes, my Lady President,” came the hasty response.

“Good. Out. _Now_.”

They were escorted by a second set of soldiers, handpicked by the General, several of whom had served with Arkytior or the Doctor at some point during the War. The Lady President calmed slightly when they left, though there was still an anger lurking in her gaze; the General was equally as displeased, knowing that the guards assigned to protect the Moment had disobeyed direct orders from her-- though the Master suspected a good portion of her current mood could be attributed to how she had been pulled away from her duties to be caught in close proximity with both the Doctor and himself, the first an annoyance made more annoying by the fact that she respected him and the latter being someone she simply despised.

Well, he was used to being despised. Good to know he hadn't lost his touch.

The Master studied the box sitting innocently on the table; it was no more than a cubic foot in size, unassuming wood and gears and engravings, lit by a some faint internal glow. It hardly seemed like a weapon of mass destruction, at least when one was looking at it. But standing this close, he could feel _some_ kind of power in the air, disturbingly strong, crawling over his skin like the prickle of regeneration energy.

The Doctor had found him in his TARDIS and proceeded to drag him along without explaining anything, no matter how much he had cursed up a storm; he had also used the Master's TARDIS to send a message to the Lady President – which was quite rude, using his TARDIS without permission, and he didn't care if the statement was hypocritical. They had found some of the technicians assigned to assist him and the Doctor taking apart the Moment piece by piece – which was _incredibly stupid_ , and the Lady President's anger was more than justified. No one knew how it _worked_ or how it had been made; taking it apart was just as likely to kill them all as it was to give them answers.

Now they watched as the Doctor frowned and tutted over the partially disassembled piece of technology, flapping his hands about. The Master was impassive, at least outwardly, though he had been considering the benefits of hypnotizing the General into leaving. She really _did_ look displeased about needing to be here, but if he chose that course of action, he would need to deal with both the Lady President and the Doctor _and_ their collective disdain for such things, and he needed their cooperation if he ever wanted to get off planet.

And as for the Lady President, though she was still livid with the others, she seemed also slightly curious, as though wondering what glimmers of truth would come out of the Doctor's mad ramblings this time.

“Why on Earth were you letting them do this to you, eh?” His hands ghosted over some of the gears that had been removed, the paneling lying flat on the table instead of being affixed to the sides of the box, but he clearly hadn't the faintest clue as to how they would be put back together. The Master refrained from commenting that perhaps, maybe, those technicians who were now in solitary might have been able to reverse their work? Not that it would have occurred to his former friend to think of it. “Can't possibly be comfortable.”

“I figured they were as likely to shoot me as they were to listen.”

The unexpected voice caused him to startle; the guards who had replaced those dismissed went for their guns; the General took a half-step backwards to place herself between the stranger and the Lady President. The Doctor turned, significantly more calm, and the stranger just sighed, looking tired as the General's hand drifted towards her weapon.

“...Yeah, just like that.”

He saw the Lady President's hand drifting towards her own sidearm, concealed beneath the heavy fabric of her robes. The Doctor made an upset sound and kept flapping his hands about.

“No, no, not with the _guns_ ,” he said, sounding annoyed. His emotions splashed across the Master's shields like sea foam. “How many times do I have to say I don't _like_ the guns before it sticks?” He turned to look at the General, at the Lady President, and when no orders were forthcoming, he glared at the soldiers until a number of them holstered their weapons and shifted into a less defensive stance, despite the lack of response from their superiors.

The Master's eyebrow cocked up, ever so slightly. He had known of the Doctor's efforts in the War, but _that_ was interesting. Gallifrey's finest, choosing to side with a renegade over the two most powerful on the planet?

“Are you all right?” the Doctor asked, and they made a dismissive sound.

“Well enough.” Contrary to its words, they looked rather like they were in pain, arms curled protectively around their middle, their shoulders hunched forward. “Did I at least get the faces right, this time?”

The Doctor hesitated. The stranger was a teenager, bright green eyes and hair shaved close to their head, dark skin, leather jacket, combat boots. The Master felt they were vaguely familiar, but he knew he hadn't ever met them before. “'Fraid you're zero for three on that count.”

“Really?” Now they looked disappointed. The Master subtly opened up a blank page on the dataslide in his hand and started taking notes. Were they-- it, perhaps-- simply projecting emotions it thought others want it to see? Could it possibly understand emotions well enough to mimic them? Surely it couldn't-- but, then again, the Moment was rumored to be sentient. “Damn. Ugh. What were you looking for? Calculations?”

Then, instead of being in front of them, it was on the other side of the table, pulling the box closer to itself and sliding gears across the polished surface with nimble fingers and a grimace, nails painted in gold leaf, blonde hair spilling over its shoulders and ragged clothes of white and earthy brown. The Master stared.

“Calculations, yes,” the Doctor agreed, at about the same time the Lady President found her voice.

“My Lord Doctor, if you would kindly _explain_?”

The Doctor looked confused. The Master, when he spoke, was quiet. For one of the few times in his life, he could consider himself both awed and afraid, simultaneously.

Not that he would admit it. Still, the Moment glanced at him from the corner of its eye, as though the shields around his mind were worth nothing. Perhaps, to it, they were. His skin crawled.

“I would have thought it obvious,” he said, setting the stylus down with fingers gone numb. “It's a box. You can't interact with a box. The Moment needs an interface.”

“Quite right,” it agreed, and slotted a couple of gears back into place.

He spared a glance toward the Doctor, who, damn the man, looked mildly perturbed at most. Better than completely blasé about it, but--

The General had opened her mouth, gone a funny shade of gray; the Lady President held her ground, her expression that carefully constructed sort of blankness which came of centuries in politics, but the lack of reaction was telling.

“An interface,” he continued, slow, “that can evidently feel pain.”

“That what this is?” It kept slotting pieces together, reaching into the box all the way up to its shoulder at times – Gallifreyan technology, bigger on the inside, of _course_ – and made a thoughtful sort of noise, seemingly unconcerned about how it was able to take itself apart and put itself back together again, a weapon that could detonate itself, if it so chose--? “Huh. Never felt that before. Makes sense, though, considering I'm looking at my own insides.”

It slotted the last of the pieces into place, then picked up the side panel and snapped it shut, gold swirling at its fingertips. When it looked up, the same gold was in its eyes, and it was as though he was but eight years old again and staring into eternity, at power immeasurable. “Imagine that kind of pain, inflicted upon trillions and trillions, all at once... all in the space of a single _moment_. Imagine that.”

There was a long silence; no one spoke, and the Moment and its interface hummed chords in minor sixths, and the Doctor clasped his hands in front of him. The Master picked up his stylus once more and resumed taking his notes, though he still was having trouble feeling his fingers.

“Calculations,” it said again, nodding a few times. “With a TARDIS to interface with, I can run them for you.”

“I'll be leading the squadron of ships when we take to the atmosphere, so if I have permission to bring my own TARDIS to this room...?” The Doctor chanced a look towards the Lady President and the General, neither of whom seemed to know quite how to respond. Which was fine. The Master didn't either, though he certainly wasn't going to _admit_ it. “That won't cause any disruptions for you?”

“Hardly.” It smiled, rather casually, and had it always been sitting on the table in front of them? Had it not just been standing some several feet away? “Though it isn't necessary. I've been chatting with that ship of yours now and again, when I'm in the Vaults. Not much to do when you're a box.”

The General went for her gun again; the Moment was wandering around the space of open floor across from the empty table that-- the Moment, the _box_ , was placed on-- far on the opposite side of the room, spinning about gracefully to music none of them could hear, and it was standing next to the table, and it was standing next to the Doctor. Its face was different, a taller woman in a ragged kind of dress and dark, wild hair piled atop its head, cascading in curls down its back. “She's very nice. Lovely conversations.”

The Doctor looked as though he had been slapped. The Master approved of the expression. “You-- _my_ TARDIS?”

“Who else?” It sat up on the table, swinging its legs back and forth, blonde again and not-quite shimmering gold. “I've an appreciation for fine machinery.”

Now three of the four in the room seemed unsure of how to proceed, and the Master cleared his throat. The Moment looked at him, and then it was peering over his shoulder, far too close-- that power was overwhelming. His skin crawled. It blinked at the notes he had taken, and smiled, far too cheerful. “Yes?”

He took a half-step sideways to give himself some room, and yet it didn't seem to change the distance between them at all. “To clarify, you simply need time and a suitable console to run calculations through that will enable us to move the planet back?”

“Correct,” it said, still smiling. “Ooo, you want to change that bullet point. Not projecting emotions, really.”

The Master, who had only just thought of making a note about how realistically the Moment's interface could emulate emotional responses such as a smile, hesitated with his stylus just above his dataslide, and they were now four for four in regards to stunned silences.

The Moment looked between them and waggled its fingers in a wave before winking out of existence, leaving the box to rest innocently on the table behind it, silent and still and completely unassuming.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An _entire planet_ reappearing without warning isn't going to go unnoticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got emails saying this chapter posted twice, don't worry, the original chapter was deleted by mistake (don't ask how I managed that, I don't know either) and I had to repost.

Commander Stoor the Ruthless, overseer of the Fourteenth Battle Fleet of the Great and Mighty Sontaran Empire, was not a creature who ran. There was a way of doing things on Sontaran ships, and running did not fit into that; Sontarans themselves were not made to _run_ in the way that other species were, only to march quickly and without faltering. Yet, he was, in essence, running through the halls of the battleship and ignoring the soldiers snapping to attention with shouts of _Sontar-ha!_ as he passed. A datachip was clutched in one gloved hand, and it was only force of habit that slowed his pace to a walk and gave him the chance to salute as he approached the General, thus avoiding a breach of protocol that would have seen him executed where he stood.

“Stoor,” greeted General Baatal, overseer of the flagship of the Great Empire. He did not look away from the viewport, the stars spreading endless before them, the territory which was theirs or soon would be. “May you die honorably in battle.”

“General Baatal,” answered Stoor, breathless. “May you bring glory to your family name.”

“Hm.” There was a pause that stretched out, long, before Baatal turned to look down at him. “You are not scheduled to report for another three cycles.”

“The fleet was passing through the Zero Quadrant,” he said – speaking in a low tone of voice, now, for while most of the bridge crew were little more than drones, not meant for strategies and critical thinking, he didn't dare to risk being overheard – “and discovered something which I felt must be brought to your attention immediately-- and in person. Some of the crew requested that we pay homage to the site of Kasterborous, for it was the center of war on a scale our Empire has never managed to achieve.”

Baatal dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Continue.”

“The scar across the universe is great in size, and the sky itself like a void. Black, no stars. You have seen it?”

Now, the slightest bit annoyed: “ _Most_ of us have. Continue.”

“We saw stars, General. Stars in the distance, binary suns. A planet, in the center of it all.”

Baatal went silent, narrowing his eyes. “Impossible,” he finally murmured. “Gallifrey is dead, and all the Time Lords with it.”

“I have the datachip here with me.” Stoor held up the device in his hand. “Scans and images taken from the ships sensors and external cameras. The navigation systems were double-checked, triple-checked, but the coordinates were the same, each time. Ten-zero-eleven-zero-zero by zero-two from the galactic zero center!”

Baatal snatched away the datachip and shoved aside some of the drones manning the nearest console; it took a moment for the information to be run through, but sure enough, the coordinates for the former – now, current – location for Gallifrey appeared and were quickly followed by dozens of still images, recordings, and statistical readouts.

“By the ruler...!”

The two stood, watching; a hologram of Gallifrey rotated in front of them, battered, cratered, red the color of blood.

“Sir... Sir, if it isn't impertinent of me to ask, what will we do?”

* * *

The Daleks ship were scurried into a frenzy, whizzing about, orders screaming through the air. The parliamentary ship was alive with action; the fleet spun with increased speed as their destination abruptly changed.

“ _Time Lord presences detected! Plotting course for Gallifrey!”_

* * *

“If you fall off of that railing and break your neck, I will _laugh_ at you.” The Master, contrary to his words, sounded entirely unamused. “I have more regenerations left than you do, at this point in our lives. Perhaps you ought to reevaluate your decisions...?”

The Doctor, swinging his legs from the balcony like a young child, grinning like a fool at the celebrations echoing across the city, waved one hand dismissively and made his position all the more precarious for it.

“Look at them!” he laughed. “Look at them! Stars in the sky! And the moons, the both of them! We even got the _moons_ back.”

“We used the energy wells to create new matter-- they're not the old moons.”

“Oh, shut up, you.” He was seemingly unperturbed by the other man's negativity and general lack of excitement. “Don't think I haven't heard about how you've been telling stories to the children in the infirmary while the residential areas are still being rebuilt.”

The Master made a scoffing sound but otherwise did not comment, instead walking over to look out at the buildings below them, at the sky above.

There were millions of stars swirled across the sky like handfuls of spilled glitter, two shining moons suspended in their midst. Pazithi Gallifreya shone a copper color much like the shade of the afternoon sky, and its smaller, sister moon was a silvery gray. The mountain ranges, cratered and misshapen, were snow-capped and shimmering past the curve of the Citadel's dome and the energy fields; out of sight, the ruins of Arcadia had stopped smoking, and those who had survived until the War's end were returning by the thousands as the rescue fleets sent out earlier on began their return.

And the Citadel itself was packed full of jubilant citizens, all finally free of the terrors of the War which had haunted them – things weren't perfect, certainly, for while the War itself was over, its effects would be long-lasting and slow to fade, if they ever did. But the point still remained: Gallifrey had returned, and this was cause for celebration. Bonfires had been lit in the streets below; there was music and there were parades, and singing spiraled up from the crowds to their ears.

“The transduction barrier's in place?” the Doctor asked mildly, glancing up. The Master briefly followed his gaze to the skies and stars.

“It's supposed to be. The scanners detected a passing fleet not long ago.”

“You have access to the scanners?”

“No.”

The Doctor laughed. “Friendly or hostile?”

“Sontaran.”

“Eugh.” He made a face. “Ah, well. Don't suppose we could bring a planet back without attracting some sort of attention. And! I don't suppose you'll be around here too much longer?”

“ _Please_ ,” the Master scoffed. “Like this was ever truly home for us. And would you believe they want to grant me a title?”

“You _are_ heir to your family's seat on the Senate, which is rather lacking in members, after the political cleanouts Romana's been overseeing. Though I guess you'd want something a little bit higher up?”

The Master just shook his head, tapping his fingers on the stone railing in agitation. “I don't have the _patience_ for these idiots. You're right in that rulership sounds marvelous, but if I so much as _look_ in the direction of our dear Lady President, I'll be fending off the Lady Admiral, the General, and you yourself. Safer options to positions of power, surely.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, and the Master remained entirely unapologetic, and they lapsed back into silence. A crowd further down burst into ecstatic cheering, and pieces of scrap metal were tossed into the nearest pillar of flame. “Whenever you wind up leaving, try to remember to say goodbye. Imala cares for you. And the children-- I went to see them, earlier. They want to know if you'll be back soon.”

The red-haired man didn't respond for a long stretch of silence.

“Compassion,” he said finally, “my old friend, was always a weakness of yours.”

As to what _old friend_ meant to either of them, anymore, neither of them could be exactly sure. The Master was still disparaging of the Doctor's idealism; the Doctor still hoped for a day he knew would never come. They were both old, and they had once been inseparable, and then they were enemies bound by fate, and now they were simply two very weary men in search of stable ground. Wandering hearts and wandering souls, never quite content. Rarely ever at peace, if even for a short amount of time.

“Wouldn't have it any other way,” the Doctor answered.

The Master dipped his head, a wry kind of smile playing across his face for a moment or two. “If anyone asks why I'm not participating in... _this_... simply tell them I've gone to make repairs.”

“Will I see you again?”

The Master had just barely stepped past the doorway when the Doctor spoke up, and he paused with one hand on the wall.

“Whose to say? If I do leave soon, it hardly seems likely. But then again, we've always been ones for skewing the odds.”

And without turning back, he disappeared into the hallway-- perhaps to do repairs, as he had said, or perhaps to visit the children in the infirmary, as he had been doing more and more often as of late.

Looking out on the celebrations, the Doctor smiled.

* * *

He had a long period of time to himself after that day. The celebrations continued without end, though the planet had little in the way of resources to spare for a festival of any kind; the Doctor had the pleasure of seeing several of the Time Gentry who glared at him through most of the meetings he was present for slinging arms around each other's shoulders and singing drinking songs in four different keys. The Master, so far as he knew, had yet to leave, though no one had seen heads nor tails of him since the day the planet had been settled to her rightful home. He was reasonably sure that Imala knew, based off of her amused smile whenever the subject came up, but she wasn't saying, and he wasn't going to ask.

There had been rumors that he was spending his time in the medical sector, telling stories to a number of children, but those had been dismissed as entirely preposterous.

His mother still owned the family estates on the hills of Mount Lung, and she fully intended to retire from politics once things had calmed and settled down – and no matter what anyone had to say regarding him, he would always be welcome there. The General had grudgingly shook his hand at one point; Arkytior could almost always be found with the veterans she had fought with in the Firefields after their ill-fated mission to Arcadia; Romana was as busy as she ever was, but there was still something more relaxed in her posture.

It was weeks and weeks and far too many dull meetings scattered throughout the festivities later when the alarms in the Citadel began to blare again; the lighthearted air which had surrounded them dissipated like smoke in a stiff breeze.

The Doctor tore through the hallways, turning a corner and skidding to a halt in the communications center before he could crash headlong into Romana and the General. Red-robed officials and workers rushed to and fro, hunched over consoles, snapping out orders. He caught the last bit of a report being given by a young woman, gray-faced and hands trembling-- she was too young for such a place, he noticed almost immediately, but the War had turned them all into soldiers out of necessity.

“--Dalek ships in close proximity, forerunners of a fleet, the transduction barrier _cannot_ withstand a full attack, not yet.”

Romana's face was blank as she looked on. The woman sucked in a sharp breath of air in an attempt to steady herself and continued, and the Doctor felt his hearts sink with every passing moment. The General let out a low hiss through her teeth.

“Scans have also picked up an entire Sontaran war fleet, and smaller crafts from at least three dozen other species, some in well-established positions of power-- some are newly developed, since the War, we cannot identify their type.”

“My Lady Alliya,” Romana said softly after a pause, “see that the controls are overridden to manual, keep all possible power diverted to maintaining the transduction barrier. My Lady General: coordinate our defenses to the best of your ability, see to it that evacuations begin further down. My Lord Doctor, _with me_.”

He jumped to follow suit, hurrying after her to the largest console in the center of the room. His old friend worked smoothly and calmly, expression still utterly blank-- though perhaps it could be better described as bleak. “We will open negotiations with the Sontarans, first,” she murmured. “They are more likely to be dissuaded than the Daleks.”

 _More likely_ was a relative kind of term. Daleks could not be dissuaded. Sontarans, at least, would kill you nicely. His mind raced as he considered ways which he might be able to turn the warships against one another-- not a one of his plans was likely to work, but he could _try_ , he could stall for time--

“You will do most of the talking,” she continued, inputted a final set of commands into the console before them. “I dare say you know more of Sontarans than I, as of now.”

They had expected this. They would have been fools not to. But they had not expected so many, so quickly.

From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flash of gold, the Moment just out of sight, watching and waiting and doing nothing to interfere.

On the viewscreen before them appeared a Sontaran in full armor.

“...Hello,” he said after a slight hesitation. Speaking Gallifreyan had been more natural to him than he had thought it would be, and the words he now offered in Standard were slow in coming. Sontarans, sense of honor, adhering to _traditions_ and _ceremony_ , he needed to do this-- _they needed to do this_ \-- “Who might we have the honor of speaking to?”

Tradition, ceremony. He spoke first to establish the dominance of his side over theirs, a show of power, and did not deem to give his name or Romana's. Such a thing was not considered an insult; Sontarans appreciated displays of strength, something almost like a game, and Gallifrey could not be considered anything _but_ strong in times like these.

“ _I am General Baatal the Destroyer, presiding over the flagship of the Great and Glorious Sontaran Empire!”_ announced the Sontaran, and the Doctor hid a wince. Flagship. General. Excellent. Baatal slammed his fist against his chest in a form of salute, continuing. “May you die honorably in battle!”

Romana twitched next to him, and the Doctor's eyes went wide, and from somewhere in the back of the room, he thought he could hear a muffled sob.

“Don't worry,” he murmured over his shoulder, the words quick, dropping back into Gallifreyan. “Don't worry, this-- this is _good_ \-- they're a cloned warrior race, bred for a specific definition of honor and glory. That isn't a death threat, it's an introduction!”

Turning back to Baatal, he smiled. “And may you bring glory to your Empire!”

The length of time between responses had the Doctor starting to worry that he had miscalculated, even though he was _sure_ he hadn't-- but he did try to avoid Sontarans, as a general rule, and he could have been wrong-- what if he was wrong?

And then there was a noise like laughter, and Baatal removed his helmet to tuck it under one arm, grinning, a sharp baring of his teeth. _“But of course! Who else would have helped to accomplish such a feat but you, Doctor. I am pleased you know of our customs!”_

The Doctor laughed. He hoped it didn't sound forced. General, flagship, General on a flagship who _knew him_ , wonderful, great. Fantastic, even. His palms were sweating, and he resisted the urge to wipe them on the fabric of his robes. “Well-- I've been around a bit, as I'm sure you know. To what do the Lady President and I owe the honor of your appearance, General?”

Baatal squinted at him. The Doctor wondered if he had miscalculated yet again. _“There is a Dalek fleet approaching your outer atmosphere, Doctor, Lady President. We have maneuvered into position to intercept them should they continue on their current course.”_

And... well. He wasn't entirely sure what to say to that, and so he said nothing. Romana tilted her chin up slightly.

“Are you proposing an alliance, General Baatal?"

“ _The Daleks are of the most impressive war machines this galaxy has beheld,”_ stated Baatal, and the Doctor knew that it was truly meant as a compliment to the vile creatures. _“And you yourselves equal them in such things! We honor your valiant efforts in battle, and consider the Daleks a menace, for they do not fight with honor. As such, we of the Great and Glorious Sontaran Empire will offer our assistance in the defense of your homeworld-- an alliance, yes, though whether or not it is temporary will remain to be seen.”_

Sontaran logic. Right. General, flagship, strict adherence to ceremony and tradition-- heavens, but they were lucky the General had considered them more honorable in their fighting than the Daleks. _Breathe_.

Romana blinked once, the only indication that she was surprised. “...We thank you for your assistance, General Baatal.”

“ _It is the honorable course to take, Lady President! And worry not of the other ships orbiting-- curious passerby, for this event will surely have legends written of it. We shall shoot them from the skies in a blaze of glory should they come too close!”_

It was ironic-- more than ironic, really, but that was the only word he had for the situation at hand-- that they would be rescued by the only other race who had successfully invaded their planet. The Doctor bowed shallowly, enough to show respect while still marking them as equals, and Romana did not bow at all, and General Baatal signed off shortly after.

They were not quite in the clear, and likely would not be for a long time yet, but for a people whose planet's name translated to _they who walk in the shadows_ , perhaps such a thing was to be expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian for more writerly things.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know how Clara's been in the character list but hasn't actually shown up yet?
> 
> Three guesses as to who makes an appearance this chapter, and the first two don't count.

Surprisingly enough, the weight of the Sontaran Empire on their side of the battlefield was enough to dissuade the Daleks from an immediate attack. How long this would last, no one was sure, but neither race was capable of waging war on a scale like the War and Gallifrey's defenses were significantly better than they had been even a short time ago.

The Time War had engulfed the entire universe and bled into others adjacent; galaxy after galaxy burned, and planets were dragged into the fighting no matter if they were neutral. Time Lords and Daleks were feared in equal measure.

But in the ages since, and during, and before – time travel, by nature, didn't have much to do with “the present” – the Daleks had furthered their reputation while the Time Lords had fallen into tattered legends, stories passed on through the influence of a single survivor. Time Lords: arrogant, certainly, sometimes too much for their own good. Powerful, of _course_ , and a force to be reckoned with. Kind-- well, not during the War, but nobody had been kind during the War. And they had not been kind before the War, and they were not particularly kind after the fact, but there was one single survivor of that terrible, last day, and _he_ was kind.

In the ages since, and during, and before, there was only one Time Lord left in the universe, and that one Time Lord... arrogant, certainly, sometimes too much for his own good. Powerful, of _course_ , and a force to be reckoned with. Kind-- how could he be anything but?

The universe, knowing the Time Lords had returned to the stars, remembered that survivor and all that he had done for it, and the universe began to repay its debts.

* * *

It was midday. The skies were a pale yellow-orange with both suns beating down through the clear alloy of the Citadel's dome, but after the fires of the War, the heat was nothing. Gallifrey had always been a warm kind of planet. Pazithi Gallifreya was faintly visible above the cratered mountain ranges, a dark orange-yellow blot against the lighter background, and the fields beneath its shape were a burnt kind of brown – yet, if reports were to be believed, covered in a fuzz of crimson grasses.

“Pardon me if this question is impertinent, but what did you _mean_?”

The Doctor glanced sideways at Romana. She had a proper office, now, with windows looking out on the city below them; the meeting rooms deep below were still in use, but they were tired of bomb shelters when there were no longer bombardments to be frightened of. They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking down, daring to hope again. “You're the President, Romana. I don't think it's possible for you to be impertinent.”

“I'm being serious, Doctor.”

“So am I!” He laughed, but it faded when she did not follow. He sighed. “What did I mean by what?”

“You said you counted the children,” she answered, meeting his gaze and frowning when it turned hollow, haunted. “You said you counted them.”

“...Does it matter now, Romana? You're all alive.”

“It hurts you, and while my duty as President is first and foremost to Gallifrey, my duty as your friend is to _you_. So yes, Doctor, it does indeed matter.”

His head drooped, and he sighed again, and he shook his head. “There aren't any riddles in that one. No tricks.” He turned his palms upwards in a helpless gesture. “I kept receiving transmissions and reports in the War, even after I went off-grid, after I... well. And a census was taken after Arcadia fell, to count the losses, and one night long after you all were gone, I sat down and I read. I counted, Romana, simple as that.”

They lapsed into silence, standing shoulder to shoulder, not quite touching.

Romana sighed and bowed her head slightly, the motion made somewhat more evident by the heavy collar she still wore on her shoulders. “I will do everything in my power to make sure those numbers do not get any smaller, old friend. You have my word on that. I cannot and will not let this planet fall to war yet again-- so long as I hold this office, we will never return to that.”

If his eyes were slightly damp, neither of them were going to mention it. “...It's very good to be here again, Romana.”

“It's very good to have you here, Doctor.”

* * *

“Just like old times, eh, Susan?”

“I haven't gone by that name in centuries, Grandfather.” Arkytior raised an eyebrow at her the Doctor, dashing about the console with an exuberance she had yet to determine whether or not it was faked. It wouldn't surprise her if it was-- she had seen too many soldiers put up false fronts to hide how badly the War had traumatized them, and heavens knew that the Doctor had seen worse than most-- but at the same time, there had always been a lightness in her grandfather's step and a cheerfulness to his laughter, rare as it was when she had been small, and she was very much reminded of that watching him now.

“And?”

“And...?” she echoed. “It's not my name!”

“Neither is Arkytior.”

“And _your_ name isn't Doctor!”

They had spoken more since that first painful conversation, and words came easier between them, now. Arkytior couldn't help but think that there was something of a role reversal between them now, she with the seriousness of her grandfather's first incarnation while her grandfather now clung to youth and smiles, but it didn't change the dynamic between them, not really. They were older, both of them, and weary, and battered, but he was still her grandfather, and she was still his granddaughter.

The TARDIS shook around them as they were launched into the Time Vortex, floor shuddering beneath her feet in a way that would have reminded her of crashing if it weren't for the brightness of the room and the gentle hum of the ship in the back of her mind, a presence both warm and comforting.

Her grandfather had found her near her quarters and asked if she would walk with him, and she hadn't thought to ask where it was they were going until they were ducking through corridors to where his TARDIS was parked; “Just one trip, for old time's sake!” he had exclaimed, hearing no words to the contrary. And she _had_ been contrary. There was a high possibility that war could break out again, and she was an _admiral_ of Gallifrey's remaining armed forces. They weren't authorized for flight-- if they left, they might not be able to get back in, and if they _did_ get back in they would likely be flagged as a threat. _Yes_ , he was technically saying that it would be a short trip, and they would be back before anyone could find them missing, but she _knew_ that his “short trips” never turned out quite as they intended.

Heavens only knew how long it would be before she would see the planet again.

But he had smiled at her, pulling her along by the hand like she was a child again and not a decorated officer. Said things like _it's only going to get busier the longer we stay_ and _politics,_ _nasty stuff_ and _I won't be able to go anywhere after long, and Romana's probably going to need to grant me immunity once the Shadow Proclamation gets wind of things_ which-- well, she decided she was better off not knowing. And then they were inside the old ship her grandfather had stolen so long ago, and she remembered how much she had loved to fly, and how much she missed it now.

And how, really, there was no stopping her grandfather once an idea got into his head. Admiral of the fleet she may be, but she doubted even the combined forces of herself, the General,  _and_ the Lady President could stop the Doctor from reaching his goal.

“God, you've gotten worse at piloting, somehow,” she said with a roll of her eyes and stepped up to help him, fingers flying across buttons and levers. He grinned at her from around the time rotor, throwing a series of switches; the flight temporarily stabilized before getting even worse than it had been before.

“Respect your elders, Kyt!”

* * *

She recognized Earth the moment she set foot on it. The smell was the same, even centuries apart between the now and the time she had lived in once with David; the skies were a distinctive shade of blue, and she could always feel the timelines wrapping around her with something like familiarity. She knew Earth, and knew it well.

Arkytior's grandfather had no qualms about racing out the doors as soon as they had landed, still clad in Gallifreyan robes of red, so she shrugged and followed suit, making sure to shut the doors behind her. Her clothes were slightly more distinct than his, as she had been in a military meeting and thus was in uniform, but he was already drawing attention to himself as he ran up to some person's house and knocking several more times than was necessary, so she didn't trouble herself with it. She walked after him, crossing a road and looking at the cars parked along the side – gasoline fuel, she could taste it in the air, and it _reeked_ , and yet it was still, somehow, a comfort – and was only a couple steps behind him when the door opened.

“Doctor!”

The human girl was petite, a round face and dark hair and dark eyes, a little bit like she herself had been when she was younger, and she didn't seem to notice Arkytior or care about their apparel and the way it stood out in twenty-first century England. Instead, she drew back to punch the Doctor hard in the shoulder before wrapping him in a hug.

“Where've you been?” she demanded to know. “It's been nearly a _month_. Normally,” she continued, pulling back to frown at him, “you at least mention when you're going to be busy. Or did you mess up the dates again?”

“Sorry!” he said brightly in Gallifreyan-- paused, for a moment, seeming confused until he remembered what the word was in English, and started over. “Sorry, Clara-- very sorry-- it's been a _bit_ longer than a month for me this time 'round, but Clara, _Clara_ \--!”

“Breathe, Chin-Boy,” said Clara with a smile. “Just joking with you. Who's your friend?”

“Clara!” The Doctor bounced on his feet like a small child presented with an excessive amount of sweets. “Clara! Clara, _this_ is the Admiral Arkytior, commander of the battle TARDIS and flagship of the Gallifreyan Defensive Fleet _Pandora_ and, importantly, my granddaughter-- Kyt, Kyt, this is Clara!”

There was a pause. Clara looked at her, and Arkytior looked steadily back-- and then the human smiled, a bright, beaming thing. “Gallifreyan Defensive Fleet?” she echoed.

“Yes!” her grandfather exclaimed, clapping his hands together.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously!”

“Really seriously?”

“Isn't is _wonderful_!”

_Oh, Kyt... I stole the Moment._

But he had explained, too, what had happened after the fact. A human friend who had suggested another option when no other option seemed remotely possible.

Clara invited them both to come inside. The Doctor bounded in eagerly; Arkytior, taking a moment to look at the sky above --  _sky_ , blue and clear and dappled with puffs of cloud, not a wisp of smoke in sight -- followed shortly after. She had spent a long time on Earth, a lifetime ago. It was as much a home to her as Gallifrey was, as her grandfather's TARDIS had once been; humans were not her people, and never could be, but she knew how marvelous of a species they were capable of being. This was her grandfather's friend, someone he trusted, someone who, if stories were to be believed, was instrumental in Gallifrey's survival.

If this was who they were here to see on this "short trip," Arkytior didn't mind the journey quite as much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	17. Chapter 17

They wound up sitting around a small table in the small kitchen of a small house; Arkytior focused on the numerous open windows as a reminder that the room, little bigger than the console of a Type Gamma TARDIS, was not shrinking and collapsing around her.

Still, tea was poured, and they sat, and Arkytior was, as always, grateful to be anywhere that was _clean_ after so long in situations spent otherwise. Her grandfather carried most of the conversation, filling the air with words upon words and excessive hand gestures, and Clara laughed, and Arkytior was just very grateful that the Gallifreyan Defensive Fleet had been disbanded with the official end of the War, lest she be facing a dishonorable discharge or worse for up and leaving the planet.

Which was to say, she was having a wonderful time.

It was something her grandfather had told her, centuries and centuries ago: the most fun is always had in the places one isn't supposed to be. She contributed little to the conversation, and felt slightly out of place as a stranger to her, yet someone her grandfather knew well, played hostess, but she always did like Earth. Backwards in so many things, and never home in the same way Gallifrey was home, but still a part of her in its own way.

“...going to go and move the TARDIS into your house now that I know you're here, look terrible silly to anyone watching if the three of us all went in at once, won't be long at all, Clara! Back in a pop.”

“Have fun...!” Clara had hardly started speaking, but the Doctor was already out the door. Arkytior keyed into the conversation too late to realize that her grandfather was even leaving, and then it took another moment for her to conclude why.

“Bringing you back to Gallifrey right now is highly inadvisable,” she stated, and took a sip of tea. “He's going to do it anyway, mind, but better for you to be prepared for when you get there.”

“I can imagine,” Clara said after a pause. Arkytior didn't miss the way her gaze dropped to the empty space where her arm ought to be, the empty sleeve hanging loose at her side. “Has it been long? Since the, ah. Since... since the Time War?”

Arkytior thought of the Firefields, and the shards of the Citadel dome that still littered the portions of the Wastelands closest to the city, and the soldiers she still spoke with day after day and week after week.

“No,” she finally answered. “We were isolationist before things went wrong, and right now, the focus is on the planet and nothing outside. No one wants to see anyone from anywhere else. Impossible, with trading and treatises, but that's different than having a human on-planet.” Another pause, another sip of tea. “You're a friend of Grandfather's, that'll keep you safe. Just don't go wandering too far off.”

Clara smiled hesitantly, nothing like the ease she had in the conversation taken place just a few minutes before, seeming almost unsure what to do with her expression. “He was always telling me how he ran away from his planet. Doesn't seem like he'd be welcome.”

Arkytior snorted. “He was a war hero before the end of it all, not that he'll tell you. And then he managed, somehow, to get Gallifrey _out_ of the War without another life lost. Then he managed to put it back where it's supposed to be, again, no lives lost. His name carries as much weight as anyone in High Command.”

“...Right.” She nodded slowly. “Right. Okay. Um.”

Arkytior sipped at her tea, only to find the cup empty. She set it back down on the table and crossed her legs and said nothing, and neither did Clara, and the silence stretched out between them.

She was far from the conversationalist her grandfather was, truth be told.

“He probably got lost,” Clara said, once several minutes had passed with a distinct lack of TARDIS sounds filling the air. “He does that a lot. Did he do that when you traveled with him?”

“Oh, did he _ever_.” Slowly, somewhat hesitantly, she smiled. “Once, we traveled to the Stone Age with two teachers from London because he was being paranoid...”

* * *

It was evening when her grandfather picked them up, and Arkytior felt distinctly more at ease with Clara than she had at the beginning of their first meeting. She also felt distinctly _less_ at ease with her grandfather's piloting skills, which managed to get him through the War relatively unscathed, somehow, despite having deteriorated with age, and insisted on flying them back.

“It's one thing being gone and coming back, and the time passed between those two points is so small as to be irrelevant,” she said, stepping up to the console over the sound of her grandfather's protests and Clara's muffled laughter. “If you fly, we're going to wind up being gone for months-- no matter that I don't officially hold rank anymore, can you imagine the backlash for me? I'd point out the backlash against _you_ , but I know you don't much care about how you involve yourself in politics...”

“Begging your pardon, but I _was_ Lord President, now let me fly--”

“No.”

“Arkytior-- Kyt-- _Susan_.”

“If _you're_ going to bring a human onto Gallifrey, _I'm_ going to fly your TARDIS. Simple!”

“That is _not_ \-- Kyt--” The Doctor followed her as she walked around the console to the monitor; Arkytior caught Clara's eye and winked when he wasn't looking. Clara hid another smile behind her hand. “Look it's fine. She was a Time Lady once, and she's got the red dress, just give her one of those headpieces and she'll fight right in...”

“I'm sorry, _Time Lady once_ \--?” she demanded, but her hand was already on the dematerialization lever, and her attention was then split between piloting a six-person console without crashing and her grandfather's excuses for not answering her question.

“Look, if I told you, you'd be obligated to report me, and then they might need to banish me again, and that would really just be unfortunate, now, wouldn't it?”

“Grandfather, what the _hell_ have you been getting up to since I left?”

“It's hardly my fault that she stepped into my timestream-- in fact, it wasn't my fault at all, I was on the floor and she did it _entirely_ of her own volition--”

“She did _what_.”

“--but it was all all right in the end, so! You've nothing to worry about, Kyt, nothing at all.”

“You say that and it only makes things worse, Grandfather.”

The ship landed with a disconcerting _thud_ , though Arkytior knew that such rocky flying was normal for the old time capsule, and Clara's gaze flicked between the two of them with slightly raised eyebrows. Arkytior shot a final glare towards her grandfather and went to double-check their landing coordinates, and the Doctor crossed around the console during the pause in conversation.

“I'll talk with anyone who tells you you shouldn't be here,” he assured his friend in a kind tone that still booked no argument. “Besides! Everyone's saying we need to open up diplomatic relations, and not a one of them is willing to break out of their comfort zone. Why not start now?”

* * *

Even _she_ wasn't entirely sure that she was supposed to be here-- but again, once the Doctor got an idea in his head, it was close to impossible to try and talk him out of it.

Clara stood awkwardly next to the TARDIS, which had been moved back into a meeting hall by the Doctor after Arkytior had dropped herself off at her quarters; “People to talk to,” she had said without explanation, followed by a resigned, “Please don't crash,” before she shut the doors behind her. At first, she hadn't been able to do anything but stare at the room around her: stained glass windows easily the size of her house and columns hundreds of feet high, light from twin suns sending colored specks dancing across the floor, glimpses of red and orange and buildings under repair. Even now, she was taken off-guard every time she looked around and found nothing but open space, and they were _still inside_.

But she was also more aware of the passing glances shot her way, not very discreet for a room full of politicians, the whispers that seemed to follow her. Nothing was outright hostile – standing next to the Doctor's TARDIS seemed to help, just like he said it would – but she felt decidedly out of place.

Still. _Gallifrey_. He'd found it after such a long time searching, and she was honored that he trusted her to see it.

...Still. _Gallifrey_ , and she really wasn't certain that she was supposed to be here at all.

The Doctor, nearly halfway across the room, confident that she could fend for herself, didn't look up or give any indication that he had noticed her discomfort, yet he raised his voice so he could be heard: “Clara, draft!”

She blinked, startled, then looked sideways at the TARDIS doors still half-open, spilling light out onto the floor. “Right, sorry--” she said, and snapped her fingers.

* * *

The Master entered a room full of muttering politicians, a renegade Time Lord regaling the second-in-command of the Gallifreyan Defensive Fleet with stories of his travels, the first human to set foot on Gallifrey in almost a millennium, and the Lady President watching over it all with a resigned kind of bemusement. The General looked as if she wanted a stiff drink.

He paused to take in the scene and briefly considered turning around and walking straight out of the room. The children, at least, made for good conversation. And while he was required to be present, he certainly wasn't one to follow the rules.

The silence in his head still ached, and the presence of a human seemed enough of a puzzle to distract him from it for a little while, however. Who was the pet the Doctor deemed good enough to set foot on his home soil?

He meandered down the rows, wondering what exactly had gotten the politicians in such a state (something Doctor-related, of course, but that covered a wide range of things), and stopped before the human with a slightly narrowed gaze.

“Stray of his?” he asked, and she jumped. Unobservant. Bad trait, here and now.

The girl collected herself fast enough, at least, and while she couldn't seem to take her gaze off of the windows, she answered. “...I prefer the term friend, thanks. I mean... he's a friend to me, and I like to think I've helped some in his life, if nothing else.”

The Master's gaze narrowed even further. TARDISes were specifically programmed _not_ to translate Gallifreyan in its multitude of forms, and yet the girl had understood his words perfectly. He'd wanted to see how she reacted when presented with something entirely unintelligible in a strange environment, but that was... well.

“You are a _fascinating_ specimen, Clara Oswald,” he answered, smoothing out his expression into a smile, one that widened when she edged away from him slightly.

* * *

“Species with innate telepathic power and no idea that it exists _infuriate_ me.”

The Doctor jumped, tools falling to the floor with a clatter, and peered up through the glass floor of his TARDIS console to see the Master pacing about. He wasn't sure how the man had gotten in, since his ship still held a grudge, and he wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed (that was probably a bad thing, come to think), but--

“How do you _stand_ it, living with all those strays. Your shields are terrible, you have to pick up half the things they're thinking. Especially that one, she's broadcasting like you wouldn't believe.”

The Doctor pulled the goggles away from his head with a sigh. “Are we talking about Clara?”

“Who _else_ would we be talking about? Also, what've you done to the place? It's abysmal.”

The console sparked, and the engines made a distinctly upset sound. The Master muttered something rude in a dialect of Gallifreyan that had died out centuries ago.

“I haven't had a planet to go to for repairs in centuries,” he felt the need to defend, climbing out of the harness underneath the console and walking around to join his former friend on even ground. If the Master felt the need to barge in, he wasn't going to be getting any kind of work done. “I have to improvise!”

“ _This_ isn't improvisation,” the Master sighed. “ _This_ is cruelty to TARDISes and an insult to technological ingenuity.”

The engines made a noise not too different from that of a train whistle crossed with a foghorn. The Master repeated what he had said before.

“Says the one who turned her into a paradox machine,” he shot back.

“Oldest TARDIS ever to be used as one,” he answered, sounding fond. “That was improvising, that there. Thoroughly inventive, considering what I had to work with.”

“ _Negated_ by the fact that you used it to try and take over a planet in your quest to destroy most of the known universe.”

“It had been a long day.”

“Are you here for a reason or are you just here to bother me?”

“Bothering is you isn't a reason?” The Master smiled faintly. “No-- that stray of yours, she knows Gallifreyan. Understood it when I spoke it. You haven't been _teaching_ people, have you?”

“No, no-- don't be ridiculous, of course I haven't. Even I wouldn't go about teaching humans our language, friend or nott. They couldn't pronounce half of it anyway, human vocal cords aren't made for it, you know that.”

He lapsed back into silence, and the two eyed one another warily from around the console.

“...That isn't an answer.”

“Okay.” The Doctor sighed. “So far as I can tell, the TARDIS circumvented her own programming to translate because she rather likes Clara these days; Clara was a Time Lady for a considerable time so there's likely some innate knowledge; or a combination of them both.”

“Theta, _what the hell did you do._ ”

* * *

This was much better than before.

Intimidating, certainly: she was with the Doctor's granddaughter and the Doctor's _mother_ , one of whom was the youngest-serving admiral in the War, and one of whom had given birth to and raised both the Doctor _and_ his half-brother. But better than the meeting hall where she had been stared at like some creature on display in a zoo.

“I do agree with you, dear girl, he likely should have waited.” Imala poured something called c'tal for the three of them. “Then again, Theta's always been impatient.”

“Even when I was a child,” Arkytior added, and Clara felt her lips twitch up into a smile.

“What was he like, as a kid?”

“Oh, heavens, the stories I could tell...!” Imala's eyes were sparkling as she took her seat. “Best wait until he's in a meeting, however, or he'll come here to stop me. No, no, I want to hear about what he's been up to, all these years-- you said you've been traveling with him for a while, haven't you?”

“She stepped into his damned timestream,” Arkytior supplied, “so yes, _quite_ a while.”

Imala's blinked at her, eyes wide. Clara had the feeling she was going to be talking for some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter!!
> 
> As always, thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!! Comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter, but the story is not yet over...
> 
> Also.
> 
> Thirteenth Doctor announcement, am I right???????

A long time ago, Viram had memories of _before_. Not before the War, but before all the same, when there was a place that he thought was what houses were supposed to be like, and big people who were like the matrons but felt more like family, and stories. Stories about TARDISes, traveling machines, time capsules. They worked with the TARDISes, ones for building and for travel and for fighting away _them_ in the sky and the fire.

And then they were gone, and Viram was on his own for a long time.

 _Just keep quiet_ , they had said before the fires. He remembered that much. The matrons had said the same thing before the fires came to the shelter. _Keep quiet and they won't find you_.

And he did. Iota said they were safe, and Tianna sort of agreed, but he kept quiet. Just in case.

Koschei told them stories, too, when he was there. He was there often, and he didn't always tell stories-- sometimes he was quiet and stared at the floor like the veterans who had passed through the shelter, and he didn't talk at all. But he talked about TARDISes, and things he had seen in the stars, and Iota had asked once if Mr. Theta's TARDIS was like the other TARDISes and he had laughed for a long time. Viram hadn't seen anybody laugh for... a long time.

“The Doctor's TARDIS is an antique,” Koschei answered, “stolen out of the repair yards.”

Viram scrunched up his nose. Iota asked the question on all their minds: “What's an antique?”

“Old. Type 40. Types 10 through 600-Delta were discontinued centuries before the War had ever begun.”

“Was there _really_ a before the War?” Tianna had asked. She sounded hesitant. Viram could remember before he had met his new family, his two sisters, but not a time before the War. And Iota was older than him, and Tianna was older than both of them...

Koschei's lips pressed together in a thin line, and Viram thought he looked sad, but also that he looked angry.

“Yes,” he said, and his voice was odd. “Of course there was.”

They all agreed, after Koschei left that day, not to ask any more questions about before the War. Koschei frowned a lot, and he could be quiet, and he could snap at people, but that was just Koschei being Koschei instead of Koschei being angry. He shouldn't be sad or angry. They kept quiet. _Just keep quiet_.

Things happened. Tianna got better, and her skin wasn't hot to touch, and she walked and talked and even smiled, just a little. They had red robes that kept them warm and shoes without holes and more than enough food, even though Tianna gave half her portion to Iota, and Iota would eat that and pretend to eat some of her portion before giving it to Viram like they had done after the shelter, and it was just the three of them.

There were birds, and birdsong. A couple of the doctors had taken them outside to listen. The skies cleared of smoke, and grass started to grow, and the mountains stopped burning. There were celebrations when the skies grew bright; they thought the light through their windows was an attack, but there were twin suns in the sky, and moons in the evening, and stars that they could see.

Koschei told them stories. A man at the end of the universe who built a rocketship; the Seven Keys to Doomsday; two boys at the Time Lord Academy who wanted to steal a TARDIS; clashes of great armies against a single man who always seemed to come out on top against impossible odds. But Koschei came less and less often, and so did the doctors, busy and overworked like the matrons had been and not giving quite so much attention to the three of them over those still returning from the Firefields.

“We should go find him.”

Tianna spoke decisively, when she did speak. Viram looked up at her; they all had their own beds, but it made more sense to just sleep in one. He was in between his sisters, Iota's arms around him and her head on Tianna's shoulder. Koschei had just left for the evening, finishing his stories and offering a faint, rare smile, and while Viram liked his stories, he didn't think they needed to find him so soon after he had gone. But Iota agreed, nodding; he could feel her chin against the top of his head.

“Yes,” she said.

Viram frowned and twisted to look up at them both. Tianna shrugged as best she could wrapped in blankets and with the two of them almost on top of her.

“Well, he said goodbye to us. He never says goodbye.”

_Oh._

He nodded. Iota smiled. Tianna looked around the room that they shared, the cot that Mr. Theta had lent to Viram and that Viram never used, the floors and walls. It felt like the shelter, big and empty except for the three of them.

“We don't need to bring anything,” she said.

“Do you think he'll show us the stars?” Iota asked, and Tianna made a sound that might have been amused. Viram didn't know; he had never heard her laugh before.

“If we ask nicely, maybe. Help me up?”

Late in the evening, in a room in a corner of the Citadel's medical sector, three children left and vanished into the winding hallways. The same evening, a column disappeared from a certain meeting room several floors away, after much argument. However, the absence of both was not noticed until much later, and not a one thought that the two could be connected.

* * *

It was late, late, late in the evening. Romana could feel a building migraine behind her eyes, a sharp and stabbing pain that seemed to grow with each _thudthudthudthud_ of her heartsbeat; Gallifrey was surviving, and it was doing _more_ than surviving now that they had opened diplomatic relations in the relative safety of their own universe, and she as Lady President would gladly give her lives for things to continue as such. Still, she wished that it would be a faster death than slowly buckling underneath the weight of her clothes and collar and the welfare of her people.

“My Lady President?”

She did not glance up; the voice was well-known and familiar, and she was used to its appearance when she was otherwise alone. The General, now that Gallifrey was no longer at war, had resumed duties as head of presidential security, and accompanied Romana most places, lurking out of sight throughout the meetings and negotiations that never seemed to end.

“Simply tired, My Lord General,” she answered, letting her head drop briefly into her hands. Silence fell again for a few moments, broken by footsteps that sounded almost hesitant, and the General's voice from a little to the right of her.

“...If it is not too forward of me, might I offer company and a drink, my Lady President?”

She paused. Smiled faintly.

“If we are to be drinking, General, please call me Romana,” she said, and stood, and the two left the room side by side.

* * *

“Theta, before you leave-- you haven't happened to see Koschei anywhere, have you?”

The Doctor shrugged apologetically, smiling at his mother. “Afraid not. But he's not exactly a sociable one.”

Imala sighed and dipped her head in agreement, though there was still worry written across her features as they parted ways, the Doctor to another meeting and Imala to spend time with her great-granddaughter and Clara. The Doctor passed Clara on his way to the meeting hall and told her where to find the other two.

He sighed as he sat down amidst the politicians. Romana was looking weary at the head of the table, though some of the tension that had lined her posture seemed to have faded; she was doing a lot, perhaps too much. Likely, the Master's absence was low on her priority list.

And while it was true that he hadn't seen the Master in some time, and that he had no idea where his former friend might be, he still had a decent idea. In a disappointing fulfillment of a previous observation, three children had vanished from the medical sector a week ago, and not a single person had noticed, had asked after them, had raised the alarm; they had fallen through the cracks. Seemingly unrelated, Clara had pointed out as she and the Doctor had left his TARDIS one morning that there was a column missing from their “glorified storage closet,” as she referred to the temporary meeting hall, and wondered why no one else seemed to notice.

The Doctor trusted Romana, but he found it slightly concerning that none of the Lords and Ladies and Gentry entrusted with the future of his planet remained oblivious.

Ah, well. Structural issues, characteristic of politics, and all that.

The meeting droned on; the Doctor's mind wandered until it finished, feeling oddly tired throughout, and then he himself wandered off from the table.

He'd been keeping a close eye on Clara, too. She was still staying in her room on board the TARDIS, of course, and spending most of her time there or under the tutelage of his mother, but she had adapted remarkably well to Gallifrey-- an impressive feat, considering the hostility and history of the planet, it's current post-War state, and her affiliation with himself. He was _reasonably_ certain that it had something to do with the past lives she had lived; the longest one, simply by nature of the longevity of a Time Lord's life, was the one she had lived on Gallifrey, and it seemed bits and pieces of knowledge she had picked up then bled over into now. Humans couldn't speak Gallifreyan, unable to pronounce several key syllables and lacking the time sense enabling them to know which tense to speak in, but she was well on her way to understanding it when it was spoken to her. He was very proud!

A smile passed over his face as he stepped into the TARDIS console room, shutting the doors behind him and closing his eyes and basking in the gentle hum of engines. At least, until an electric current passed through the door handle, and he jerked away with a yelp.

“Hey!” he demanded of the ship. “What was that for?”

Starting to the console, fully intending to have stern words with her-- she could really be _terribly_ temperamental, sometimes, and he still wasn't sure if she was simply getting old or if he needed to properly fix up some of the circuitry, make her more comfortable-- but he never made it to the top of the stairs.

* * *

Clara had been keeping a close eye on the Doctor.

She didn't dare say that she knew him best, not on a planet where everyone seemed to know his name, where his weird childhood friend turned maybe-boyfriend turned arch nemesis turned who even _knew_ had the tendency to pop up when least expected, where one of his friends and former companions was the President, where his mother continued to invest herself in politics, but she knew him _well_. He let slip a lot more than he meant to, she was sure, and there were always pieces and fragments of memories that cropped up, things she had learned about him falling through his time stream.

He was a social kind of person, never seeming to stop moving or stop speaking, and he spoke to anyone who paused for long enough in his line of vision. Yet he had been pulling away from everyone, spending more and more time inside of his TARDIS; on more than one occasion, during the days that he did decide to walk about, she had caught him staring sadly out the windows of the Citadel, as though the red fields of grass – none of them regrown, by any means, but definitely well on their way – were something he would never be able to have, despite them being so tantalizingly close.

He had forgone the traditional Gallifreyan robes, too, even though in the first several days of her time here, he had never seemed to take them off, looking for any excuse to wear that piece of home with him. Only if something important was happening – and even then, only occasionally – would he shed his old purple jacket and bow tie and suspenders, and yet, it was just so others would be less uncomfortable. Anything alien on Gallifrey was... well, it was alien, and alien wasn't very good, right now.

“Time to go, soon,” he would say at the strangest of times. Nodding as he tinkered underneath the TARDIS console. Cheerfully, bounding up the stairs to the console after yet another long series of meetings. Quietly, after a very long day. “Soon, Clara!”

And, of course, he was getting older. She didn't know how Time Lords aged beyond that it was very slow, but for the couple of years she had been traveling with him, it had to have been centuries of him traveling with her. He looked older, his hair lighter, the lines on his face just a little bit more pronounced.

“But what do you _mean_?” she finally asked, poking him in the chest a couple times, having caught him staring morosely out a window yet again. “You keep repeating that. Be nice if you told me what you meant.”

“I mean what I mean!” came his response. Cryptic as ever, of course. “Time to go, soon. Very soon, actually, if I'm being honest, here.”

“Doctor...”

“I'm going back to the TARDIS!” He grinned, spun around, clapped his hands on her shoulders. “You should find Imala, Clara-- she's been feeling rather down, I think, since the Master left, and she likes you. Either of you want to pop by, you know where to find me!”

He walked off, leaving Clara too confused at his sudden change of behavior to ask any more questions, and he was out of sight by the time she thought to.

* * *

“This floor is... really... incredibly not comfortable.”

The ship's engines grated and groaned together, metal scraping across metal, dimensions shifting in agitation. The Doctor tutted and tried to get up, but his limbs were particularly heavy today. Too much effort to move.

“Yes, yes, I know. Idiot Doctor. Knew something was off when I woke up, decided not to say anything about it. Yell at me later. Ah. No, that wouldn't work. For... multiple reasons.”

The grating noise grew louder, up to a shriek, and he winced.

“Hey. Hey, now. If I'm going to go, this isn't so bad.” He tried to move again, this time managing to pull himself up the rest of the stairs and across the floor to lean his back against the console. “Much nicer to, in here, than somewhere out there.”

The noise died down a bit. The ship sounded mournful; the lights of the console dimmed abruptly. He reached up to fondly pat the metal behind him.

“Shh, now. Don't cry, old girl. You'll take Clara home, right? Maybe stick around with Mother, for a bit. Hate to leave her so soon, but... really was nice to see her again, don't you think? And maybe find the Master and those kids, if you can manage it. Send a message, let them know that I... well.”

The humming only grew, pulsing through the air, reverberating up through the floors and the console behind him. He felt tears pricking at his eyes.

“That you what?”

He jolted, the voice unfamiliar, but his limbs were still so _heavy_ , and the world spun around him in a way it probably wasn't supposed to be spinning.

This body. Well. It had been through quite a lot, this body, and while Time Lords were quite the resilient bunch, this was his last life. He didn't have future regenerations to draw off of. Left heart had always been the weaker one, ever since that one adventure with the Ponds-- heavens, how many centuries ago had that been, now? He couldn't remember. And he'd been feeling more tired in weeks past, _time to go soon_. Woke up this morning, and the rhythm in his chest felt off-kilter, and he'd _meant_ to send a confession dial, really, but sending a confession dial meant--

Time Lords took a long time to die. Their bodies just kept trying to regenerate, every cell fighting until its last moment. He still had time, he supposed, but then he'd need to stand up, and he didn't think standing up would be very fun for him.

The Moment knelt in front of him, wearing first the face of Romana's first incarnation. He'd forgotten that voice.

“Oh... Come on, smartest piece of technology in the universe.”

“I understand you perfectly well, Doctor. However, I am curious as to your reluctance to say it.”

“Reluctant-- not reluctant, don't be ridiculous. Just-- I'm-- dying. I'm dying. There we go. I'm... frightened.”

He squinted at the interface. Left heart, weaker one, had stopped before he could make it up to the console. It was really quite painful, if he was being honest, and the rest of his body was protesting vehemently. The shock his TARDIS had delivered must have been in response to some change in his vitals, trying to get him to call for help before it was too late.

“Does it hurt? Been a while, since I died. I can never remember.”

River smiled at him. Little Amelia, dressed in the clothes she wore when she was five, took his hand. Arkytior, as she had been as a child, curled up against his side. The Moment's eyes were serious, solemn.

“For all you do, Doctor, your reward is much too small,” it told him, and he smiled weakly. Wasn't news to him. “Remember, Doctor, _I hear you_. Tell me honestly, do you want to live?”

He gazed into the eyes of the Moment. Koschei in his school robes looked impatient; Braxatiel tilted his head to one side; his firstborn daughter held his hand. When he spoke, his voice was far too soft, but did not waver or break. “...You're honestly asking?”

“We both know the answer changes from time to time.” The Moment as River brushed some hair out of the Doctor's face, touch lighter than gossamer. “There are no debts for you to repay. Your family is safe and well. Your planet is safe and in its rightful place amongst the stars. Your ship will have somewhere it can rest. Your human friend will be with her family. Koschei is on the way to finding a place for himself. You can sleep, my dear. You can rest... There isn't anything to be frightened of.”

The world was fuzzy around the edges, breath catching in his throat on every inhale, every exhale. “I don't--”

His first wife, bless her, young as she had been the day they were married, wearing a grease-stained set of coveralls, hair pulled back in a sloppy red bun, smile serene, gentle even as she pulled him upwards so he was sitting, then standing, the only thing keeping him from collapsing as his legs buckled.

“What are you--?”

“I'm the literal embodiment of deus ex machina,” the Moment answered with something like a laugh. The Bad Wolf's howl pierced the air. He could hear the sound of children's laughter. “ _I hear you_. Do you want to die?”

“Easier, but-- no-- no, I don't-- I don't want to-- to die. I'm-- so tired. So tired.”

“Your song isn't over yet, my dear Doctor. The universe still has gifts for you.”

He couldn't move, liquid gold covering his vision, couldn't reach for the voice, for the source of the music unlike anything he had ever heard before-- but then it didn't matter.

The world exploded into light.

* * *

“I'm just _worried_ about him.”

Imala had taken the young human under her wing; any friend of Theta's was someone worth looking after, in her mind, and it had been a long time since she had any children to care for. She was still a caretaker, this was true, but care for Gallifrey and its continued survival didn't quite satisfy her mothering tendencies. “My dear girl, Theta isn't someone you ever _stop_ worrying about.”

Arkytior, painstakingly writing out Gallifreyan lettering in shaky circles with a pad and stylus, cursing periodically when her prosthetic didn't cooperate, made a noise in agreement. “Though I believe he gets himself into more trouble nowadays than he once did.”

Clara sighed. She didn't dare say that she knew him best, not on Gallifrey, and _yet_...

“He's been acting different.”

“Likely itching to fly off again.” Imala's smile was fond. “He never wanted to stay on this planet. Even my daughter-in-law could only keep him here so long, and she had her own share of wanderlust.”

She did not _dare_ to say that she knew him best.

“I know him when he gets all stir-crazy from being grounded. He's-- sad.”

That gave the two other women pause. Arkytior stopped in her writing, and Imala fixed her gaze on Clara, who tilted her chin up despite the intensity of it. The Time Lady was quite intimidating, more so when she felt something was wrong with someone she cared about-- or something, as it stood, one of two to vote against Rassilon's plans. But her son was another matter entirely.

“What reason does he have to be sad?” Imala asked her. “Has he said anything to you?”

“ _No_ , that's why I'm worried!”

She stopped herself, took a couple of moments to breathe and calm down. Time Lords acted emotionally unflappable all of the time, and even though these two never looked down on her for it, she still felt uncomfortable even raising her voice around the two older, stoic women-- like they wouldn't take her seriously if she did. Like she was a little child throwing a tantrum.

“He just-- he keeps saying it'll be time to go soon, then gets all cryptic when I ask him what he means! Was he always like that? Deliberately obtuse?”

Imala only sighed, but Arkytior cursed again, ink splattering and spilling across the tabletop, staining the hem of her sleeve; her great-grandmother turned to shoot her a disapproving look, only to get a pale-faced glare in return.

“After _all_ I've seen, how much I swear really isn't important,” she bit out, then waved her free hand, the one not still clutching the stylus in a white-knuckled grip, metal starting to bend. “Grandmother, he told me what he planned to do with the Moment, said-- 'it showed _me_ the future' to help him bring Gallifrey out of the time lock. _Me_.”

Clara understood Gallifreyan well enough, though she still struggled with the tenses sometimes; both Arkytior and Imala made the effort to speak in the more easily translated Standard when she was around. But Arkytior's words, quoting her grandfather, were in their native tongue, and her emphasis on _me_ caused all three to fall silent for a beat or two.

 _ **Me**_ , ninth body and eighth regeneration, four regenerations away from the current body. The thirteenth. The last.

“No, but that's--” Clara shook her head. “I've seen all his faces. This is the twelfth.”

“It-- _is_ possible to regenerate and keep one's current body, though I can't imagine how he would have done it off-planet.” She had gone a strange kind of gray, shades paler than her great-granddaughter, and her voice was soft. “Oh, _Theta_ , dear child...”

“But he _couldn't_ have meant--” Clara struggled to find her words. Arkytior looked at her, solemn, silent. “You can't be saying that every time he said it was time to go soon, he meant-- he's _dying_?”

“We're finding him.” Though she wobbled on her feet a little when she stood, Imala did not waver. “It can't be too soon. He'll need to send a confession dial before anything-- at least _ask_ \-- Romana would grant him another regeneration cycle without blinking twice-- _surely_ he knows?”

Arkytior stood to take her arm.

After all that they had been through-- centuries fighting in hell, on the battlefields and on the home front; all the effort to bring Gallifrey back to her proper universe, her true home in the stars; all the rebuilding and the politics and the endless waiting without knowing-- after all of that, it hardly seemed fair that the man who made it possible could be _dying_. After all that they had been through, surely the universe might be _kind_ for once?

But how very like him not to say a word about it!

And, no, it could likely wait, but they were all so shaken by the realization-- Arkytior, that she might lose her grandfather before she could really get to know him again; Imala, that she might be forced to bear the pain of outliving a spouse, and both her sons, and all of her descendants except for one; Clara, simply blindsided by the meaning of what she had been hearing her closest friend say for so long-- no, they needed to speak with him. Sooner, rather than later, avoiding a confrontation, needing to _know_.

* * *

The world was fire and flame and burning golden light; he thought he could hear the shouts of voices long-dead, though they were nearly drowned out by the howling of wolves. He did not know when things settled, only that he was suddenly, vividly aware of his body and a new center of balance, and then that he was on the floor, hands and knees-- everything burned, still, until he remembered to suck in a breath of air, and then another. Regeneration energy misted past his vision on each exhale. A minute or a month could have passed, and he would not have known the difference.

The floor was cool to the touch, the lighting clear and blue. There was a cautious hum in the back of his mind-- the floor, the TARDIS floor! He was the Doctor, and this was his TARDIS, and he...

“Deus ex machina,” he laughed, but he did not recognize the words to be his until a heartsbeat after, the accent strange. “Deus ex machina, right. Right.”

The TARDIS made an irritated sound before overriding the command he had set upon entering and unlocking the doors. The air, sparking with energy and the gold of new life, was filled with the sound of harried voices, and he groaned and did his best to pull himself upright. New center of balance, very different. He wasn't _taller_ , he didn't think, but everything was off.

Eugh. Kidneys. The Doctor poked his stomach with a frown; he didn't care for the color of those. His hands were wrinkled.

The voices had stopped. He looked at the three-- Clara, confused and more than a little bit annoyed, he could _tell_ , he really should have said something outright; his mother, gray-faced, _turn your face to me mother for you are beautiful_ \-- he never meant to frighten her; and his granddaughter, fingers stained with ink, at her great-grandmother's side. He took in another breath, slow, and let it out in a cloud of golden light.

“Hello,” he said, and though the voice was strange, it already felt more like his own. “Mother. Tell me... am I ginger?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I actually did it. That's a satisfying feeling, that is.
> 
> Thank you all so, so much for sticking with me through this piece. It's one of the first stories that I ever wrote, and rewriting it to completion has been just as fun as writing it through the first time was. I hope that everyone has enjoyed it as much as I have.
> 
> Additionally, I hope that none of you feel like Eleven's regeneration here was a cop-out or didn't live up to expectations. I've been hinting that Eleven has been older than how we're used to seeing him since chapter five -- "He looked old and sad, the man, but kind" and "A man with pale skin and a mop of brown hair streaked with gray poked his head out, frowned, and shook his head" -- and mentioned that Eleven doesn't even know how long it's been since he saved Gallifrey. This incarnation has been through a lot, too; the adventure with the Ponds that he mentioned was "The Power of Three" when he suffered what was, to many humans, a fatal heart attack, and that's just one thing we've seen on screen. Additionally, Eleven has filled what has been his most important goal for so long; he's saved his people and his planet and seen them on the road to a better place than where they were before, and he doesn't have anything left that he _needs_ to do. At this point, he doesn't need to keep fighting, pushing forward -- kind of like I felt what he was doing at the town of Christmas in _The Time of the Doctor_ , staying alive for centuries because he knew he had to keep the town safe.
> 
> Finally!! This story is over, but the series as a whole still has a lot going on. There's a sequel somewhere in the works that focuses more on the Master and the kids, with an eventual appearance from Twelve; there's a story with a working title of "The Time Traveler's Wife" that deals with Twelve and River post-Library; there's a story covering the fiftieth anniversary special and some of the events of _Advent_ here (and possibly events afterward) all from the perspective of the Moment. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, make sure to subscribe!!
> 
> Again, thank you so so much for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoyed reading. Comments and kudos, as always, are very much appreciated, and if you have questions or want to see my writing rambles and fragments of meta you can find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian <3


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